Charles Gaudet Joins Us On The Steve Jobs Inspired Join Up Dots Podcast
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Introducing Charles Gaudet
Charles Gaudet is the author of “The Predictable Profits Playbook: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Dominating Any Market and Staying on Top“ (voted #1 Book on Sales & Marketing by Indie Excellence) and host of The Beyond 7-Figures Podcast.
He’s been an entrepreneur since the age of 4, created his first multi-million dollar business at 24, and has helped others generate millions with his strategies.
His business ventures have ranged from establishing a bathroom tollbooth at his parents’ home (which they shockingly agreed to play along with) to creating an angel-financed pet health insurance company to a multi-million-dollar real estate development company–and many others.
Today, Mr Gaudet’s advice has appeared in media throughout the world including Fox Business, Inc., Forbes, and Business Insider, plus he has spoken to both domestic and international audiences.
How The Dots Joined Up For Charles
He was selected as one of The American Genius Beat’s “Top 50 Influencers.”
On occasion, his kids even take his advice.
But hang on a bit how about the fact that as a child, he was diagnosed as having one of the worst cases of ADHD (along with a litany of other learning ‘disabilities’) the doctor had ever seen.
Yet he refused medication and alternative education and taught himself how to succeed amidst those challenges!
Oh and he is a three times wrestling state champion.
Well….we could go on and on.
Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots, with the one and only Charles Gaudet
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such weighty subjects with Charles Gaudet such as:
Charles shares why his most powerful tool he has in his armoury is being in the state of gratitude as much as possible everday
Why when you are working in your zone of genius the energy boost it gives you is off the scale
We talk about the benefits of stress and why its not always something to run away from if you channel it in the right way.
And lastly…..
Why we should always ask ourselves what is in for me during any opportunity no matter how dark.
How To Connect
Return To The Top Of Charles Gaudet
If you enjoyed this episode with Charles Gaudet, why not check out other inspirational chat with Cody Berman, Michael F Schein, Sanjay Hegde and the amazing Dyscalculia
You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy
Full Transcription Of Charles Gaudet Interview
Intro [0:00]
Life shouldn’t be hard life should be a fun filled adventure every day. So now start joining up dots tap into your talents, your skills, your God given gifts and tell your boss, you don’t deserve me. I’m out of here. It’s time for you to smash that alarm clock. And start getting the dream business and wife you will, of course, are dreaming of. Let’s join your host, David Ralph from the back of his garden in the UK, or wherever he might be today with another JAM PACKED episode of the number one hit podcast. Join Up Dots.
David Ralph [0:40]
Yeah, good morning. Good evening, good afternoon. Whatever time of the day, you’re listening to this show, wherever you’re listening to it live on the day. That means that you’re eager for the new content or somewhere because you’ve just stumbled across it in 20 years time. Welcome to the show. Now today’s guest is the author of the predictable profits playbook. The entrepreneurs guide to dominating any market and staying on top. He’s also the host of the beyond seven figures podcast and he’s been an entrepreneur since the age of four. He created his first multi million dollar business at 24 and has helped others generate millions will be strategies now his business ventures have ranged from establishing a bathroom toll booth at his parents home, which they shockingly agreed to play along with, to creating an angel finance pet health insurance company to a multi million dollar real estate development company and many others. Now, he’s advice has appeared in media throughout the world, including Fox Business, Inc, Forbes and Business Insider. Plus, he’s spoken to both domestic and international audiences. And he was once selected as one of the American genius beats top 50 influencers, but hang on a bit. How about the fact that as a child, he was also diagnosed as having one of the worst cases of ADHD along with a load of other learning disabilities that doctor had ever seen. Yet he refused medication and alternative education and taught himself how to succeed admist those challenges? Now is also a three times wrestling state champion. Oh, well, we could go on and on. So what is it about business that keeps on drawing him back? And we’ve all great successes, there was obviously a scattering of failures. What would these big one be? Well, let’s find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr. Charles Gaudet. Good morning, Charles. How are you?
Charles Gaudet [2:35]
I am doing pretty brilliantly today. How are you?
David Ralph [2:38]
Well, I kinda think I’m doing brilliantly every day. People say that to me. They go, how are you today? And I? I don’t know whether it’s just because I don’t have peaks and troughs anymore. I just kind of wake up and see what the day is going to offer me? Are you somebody that is sort of reaches for the stars every day and then gets disappointed if you only grabbed the moon? Or were you somebody that just just floats along quite happily on a daily basis?
Charles Gaudet [3:06]
You know, that’s a great question. And actually, the answer might surprise you a little bit. I’ve learned that my most powerful state of mind actually comes down to gratitude. And that whether or not I finished the day on a positive note and reach the stars, or I finished the day and was presented with a challenge. Every opportunity comes with an opposite, you know, an equal challenge. And every challenge comes with it and opposite and equal opportunity. So if I stay in a place of gratitude, my mindset remains powerful, clear. And, and I can be a more effective leader,
David Ralph [3:44]
as funny based because I’m very aware of it. I had a guy on the show calm must have been about five years ago. And he said no matter how crap things feel out there, somebody is doing really, really well. You’ve just got to think about where the money’s going. And I was looking at the BBC website this morning. And we’ve got an issue over here, that the gas and the electricity bills are going up exponentially to the point about the government’s actually having to sort of subsidise so many people. But then on the other side British Gas are just making record profits over time. And it’s one of those things, isn’t it? If you look at it, there’s always a win. But people can’t see it more often than not because they’re not looking at like the big picture. If there’s a there’s a yin and yang on everything.
Charles Gaudet [4:34]
That’s correct. And actually what I would say is even if you’re the one that’s being impacted by the record high bills, somehow somewhere, there’s an opportunity in there for you. You just might not see it in the moment. But if you ask yourself, Why could this be one of the best things to happen for me right now? Eventually you come up with an answer now. It’s funny in the beginning when I’ve really started focusing in on this mindset, but a lot of people looked at me like a head to heads. And we saw that in 2020, when all craps are to hit the fan, and we asked our clients, well, why could this be one of the best things in the world happened for you at this very moment. And there’s a real difficult struggle for people to come up with where’s the opportunity in this moment, but the difference is, if we look at it like this is happening for me, we can have a clearer thought of mining create strategies, we’re being much more proactive in creating the business of life and everything that we want. The alternative is that when we say why is this happening to me, we have much more of a victim mindset, we lose our power, and we go into reactive mode. And it just what happens is you just tend to get more and more things that pile up on you. And it makes the situation worse. So in the very beginning, I wasn’t sure whether or not I believed it, it was just a saying that I would say to myself, in order to control my stress, naturally, I’m a very high stress person, control my stress and just see what came out of it. But then over and over and over again, what I realised was that, yeah, these challenges are really just opportunities. They may not see it in the moment. But the more I kind of focus on Well, why is this the best thing to happen for me? Why is this the best thing to happen for me, eventually, the opportunity unveiled itself, and it has truly become one of the most powerful, you know, when Look, people look at the strategies and the results that we’ve created for our clients, they all think, you know, some sort of magic sauce. But sometimes it really comes down to the foundational building blocks, and one of those is just ensuring that you have a powerful mindset. And that, for me, has been one of the most powerful tools in my toolbox.
David Ralph [6:55]
Yeah, I agree with you totally 10 years ago, I used to think I’ll be honest with you, when people used to say, Oh, I spend my time meditating and doing gratitude journals, and all that I used to think really, really, you’re just saying that because you’re on a podcast, you don’t spend your time doing that. But now, I’m totally into it. And you will find me laying on my back doing breathing exercises, probably three or four times a day. I’m kind of like obsessed of getting into that state where stress doesn’t occur anymore. I actually woke up at 140 in the morning last night, and I felt really stressed. And I couldn’t work out why I was just laying in bed wide awake thinking, what’s going on, there’s something going on here. I couldn’t really put anything down to it. And so I just said to myself, look, there’s no way you can be stressed in bed. Nothing bad’s gonna happen in bed. And then I just drifted off. I woke up again this morning, I was perfectly all right. So is stress something that is an indicator? Is it something that when we feel stressed, we should go? Oh, actually, this is interesting. This is pointing me to a change? Or is it something that you think that it’s, it’s going to bring us down and it’s something that we should run away from?
Charles Gaudet [8:07]
So by nature, as I mentioned, I’m a high stress person. And I like a little bit of stress. It just is what keeps me motivated, inspired. It’s my my normalcy, just having a little bit of stress. But then too much is is not good for me. And so I have to manage that a little bit. You know, I think I can experience stress in different forms. There’s the stress that comes from worry, and anxiety, anticipation, it’s a stress that actually comes from the belief that something bad is about to happen. And that’s what I would call real bad stress. And that’s where mindset is really important to, to take control of. But then there’s the good stress. And the good stress is oh my gosh, we have so much opportunity in front of us right now. I want to get I want to get so much done. I had. So it’s like, oh, there’s this other side of anticipation, which is if I could just get all this done even faster, than my results will come that much quicker. And so that is a better stress to have. Because that’s not the stress that’s going to keep you up at night. The stress that’s gonna keep you up at night is the stress where there’s just this lingering anticipation of doom.
David Ralph [9:36]
So do you think jumping in do you think you have to learn this? Do you think this is something that you’re not naturally built with? Certainly when people go into entrepreneurship and build their own businesses, they are stepping into the unknown by they have an idea. They think that they can do something and then once they actually get into it, they realise it’s a lot tougher than they sort of imagined. But can they walk into that world or already with B skills, or do they actually have to learn them? Do you think?
Charles Gaudet [10:06]
Well, I do think it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, something that has to be managed. Look, when I started that beyond seven figures podcast, I started that, because I’m in the business of providing people with real actionable business strategies. And I figured out this is great, I’m going to interview some of the brightest minds in the world, a minute, learn many additional strategies, and add those to my toolbox to be able to share with my clients. And the funny thing is, is, the more successful the entrepreneur becomes, the more you hear them talking more and more and more about mindset, and how mindset really was the most important foundational built, building block for them to take your business from where it was, to where it is today. So I do think that it is something that has to be learned. And when I say that, let’s bring it into our personal lives. The very early stage entrepreneur, if they’re going to have the mindset of somebody who goes to the gym, and they go to the gym, and they just want, they just want to lose weight quick, they just want the muscle super fast, and they’re going to be impatient. So they go to the gym, and they’re like, I’m just gonna take these pills, I’m just gonna take these powders, I’m not gonna spend the time that I need to spend in the gym, I’m going to buy this programme, and that programme, I’m going to do all this other stuff at the same time, you know, I’m still gonna sneak in the pizza and drink all the beer and everything else, let me get disappointed that they’re not getting the results that they had hoped. And they just go from one thing to another one potion, one powder, all that other jazz, just disappointed that he didn’t get the results. But then you look at the person who’s crushing it. And they have a certain set of discipline, they get up every morning, they have their routine that they that they’ve already planned out their workout routine, they put in, their diet is clean, and they show up every day. They’re not expecting to turn around and you know, lose 10 pounds in a week and put on all this muscle right away. They understand that this is a journey. And that if they just make a 1% improvement in their strength in their, you know their endurance and whatnot every single day, that compounds over time. And the course of 30 days, there’ll be a noticeable difference in the course of just 90 days, they won’t even recognise who they were 90 days prior. But that word that when you’re going to take that level of discipline, and apply that into your life, and have the patience of delayed gratification, that changes everything. Let’s look at this, David, in terms of business today. One of the main reasons why so many people struggle is because we live in this world of easy buttons, growth hacks, quick fixes, funnels, that magic funnels and the whole deal. So people will turn around and they’ll buy a course or programme they’ll run a funnel, they’ll just do it real quick, they won’t get the results that they want. They go, Oh, this doesn’t work. I’m going to try a different strategy. This doesn’t work. What about this? What about this? What about that, and they’re always doing something different. Rather than having the discipline of putting a stake in the ground, releasing what the outcome is, say, I’m gonna go ahead and I’m gonna get I’m gonna deploy the strategy, see it all the way through, look at the data, optimise the data, tweak the data, study other methods or other people that are doing the same thing that I’m doing and, and being successful and then making that work. Because at the same time, everything works and nothing works. And so it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Facebook funnel or outbound marketing or whatever it might be, you’re gonna find people in your industry who have made that particular strategy work and work brilliantly and that particular strategy crash and burn. So it’s, it’s just having the discipline of seeing it all the way through and, and optimising it and so forth, being okay with delayed gratification. Does that make sense?
David Ralph [14:26]
Hey, my total sense but I have a, I have an issue with that, which I’m gonna bang back at you now. During the pandemic, I became a Taoist. I’ve always been interested in the Dao De Jing and the Taoist principles. And when the pandemic hit and I kind of read these books and thought to myself, This really makes sense to me and one another to the principles are simplicity and patience. So making things as simple as possible, and then being patient don’t look for the results instantly. Now, my issue with That fat and what you’re saying, Charles, is, you’re absolutely right. But the problem is, at its absolute core, is people haven’t decided on the direction that they’re going to be patient in. They haven’t decided what they actually want to achieve. You know, it’s very easy. I was say, to walk around the world, if you decide which direction you’re going to go and just keep walking in that direction. If you start skipping back and forth, and jumping to America and Canada, you’d be doing it forever in a day. So how do people delay gratification, when they haven’t actually decided what they want, where they’re heading in the first place, they haven’t nailed that first part of it.
Charles Gaudet [15:46]
But what a great lesson. So when you become a seven, eight figure and beyond CEO, you’re, you identify yourself as what’s known as a visionary. And so if you notice some of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet, or CEOs on the planet, rather, they don’t actually work in the deck, so to speak, the work that they’re doing isn’t work, present day work, they work in the future, Jeff Bezos was once celebrated for having a tremendous quarter. And he had this odd look on his face, and later was being interviewed to explain the look that he had on his face. And he goes, it was funny, because I got congratulated for having such a wonderful quarter. But the reality was, is that something that I built three years ago, it just took place right now. And so CEOs are looking into the future, the work the most the time that you’re spending right now, if you’re seven, eight, beyond entrepreneurs planning for what is the new release, that’s going to end up being maybe next quarter, a few quarters from now, next year, year after whatever that might be. And so all of that is tied to vision, the people on your team, they’re the ones that execute on the vision itself. So if you’re struggling with delayed gratification, and all that other fun stuff, it’s because your mindset is focusing on the present moment. When you look at what it isn’t you’re going to do today, you’re pushing aside tasks, a task list and a whole bunch of to dues. But as you become more sophisticated, as a CEO, then you find yourself working more so into the future, going towards achieving that vision. And now your team is the one that x that’s executing on it. So you it’s really Holding, holding on to that vision does that
David Ralph [17:50]
make now it makes perfect sense. So the guy in his underpants, who’s had a crap day at work, and he gets on the train, he comes home and he goes, Screw this, I’m going to quit, I’m going to do my own thing. It that’s almost impossible to be a visionary, other than being reactive to the pain position that he’s in of, I’m not doing this anymore. How do you do it is it’s a way to talk about Jeff Bezos, who’s obviously gone through that period. But for the listener of Join Up Dots, who is looking at starting, how do they become a visionary, right at the very beginning, so that they can bring all these tools that we’re talking about into play?
Charles Gaudet [18:35]
Well, I just want to know why the guy in his underpants jumped on the, on the train in his underpants. We’ve got other issues right there. Right.
David Ralph [18:42]
You haven’t been to the UK recently.
Charles Gaudet [18:48]
You know, that’s a that’s a really good question. Because in those matters, we do things for two reasons, right? We do things either for For Inspiration, or we do things out of desperation. Now, most of us, as I learned through the time period that I spent with Tony Robbins, most of us do things out of desperation. And so what you’re referencing right now, it’d be somebody doing something out of desperation, and they just go ahead, and they take that action. Now, initially, anytime we take that action, we’re just kind of throwing spaghetti up against the wall, and we’re trying to see what sticks. And so we are living much more in the present moment. We’re just trying to see what sticks. We have a bright idea. We know kind of what it is that we want to do. But it’s not until we actually do it, that we begin to get some feedback, some data into saying, Okay, this is working. This is not working. I’m enjoying doing this, but I’m actually not enjoying this and so forth. You and You mentioned something, David, that you and I first spoke I think it was eight years ago there abouts. That’s right. Well, it wasn’t. It wasn’t 220 12 or two Only 12 Got it. So it wouldn’t have been too long before that, where the name of my company was actually managed marketing, because I thought that what I wanted to do was actually manage people’s marketing. And so I designed strategies and worked with them and deployed and executed the strategies, we got a percentage of the increase in revenue. And that’s what I thought I wanted to do. But it wasn’t until I started doing it, and realised what I liked the most and what I didn’t like the most, that eventually that morphed its way and it changed to where we are now with a company called predictable profits. And that’s kind of anytime we’re going to start something new. But when I said earlier about release the outcome, we have to focus immediately on just the data and be open to the feedback. And just knowing that through consistency and discipline, and this mindset of constant optimization. Optimization is this area of doing more of what’s working and less of what’s not working. If you’re consistent and disciplined, and you’re optimising over and over again and equitably, you do become successful, you do become successful. That’s the whole premise behind optimization. So you start something, you get a little optimization. And again, it you get to this point, and you can pull up, if you want to see this visually, you can pull up any stock chart that you can think of, there’s seldom that you’re going to find an exception to this, a stock a company that’s been trading for a while, and you’re going to see that there’s a period of time where they’re trading, they might be trading up a little bit down, but it looks pretty sideways for a while. And then they get to this inflection point, and then boom, the company just takes off. It’s the same with Facebook, or Berkshire Hathaway, or Google or Amazon or Microsoft, just look at those stock charts. And you see what I’m talking about. As humans, we go through something very similar. We have to be patient, because we try something and we get a little bit of success. And then we get a little bit of a failure. In the beginning, it feels like we’re taking two steps forward and one step back. But when we focus on this optimization with okay, this work this, this didn’t work, this work, this didn’t work. Sometimes it, it can take a little bit of time before all of a sudden, we start seeing more things winning than losing. And then you find more ways to put fuel on that fire and you hit this inflection point. And all of a sudden you go from, okay, struggling to now success to all of a sudden, just boom, crazy amounts of momentum and massive amounts of success. All of that only comes with patience in understanding of that optimization.
David Ralph [23:02]
Now, let’s hear some words. And then I’m going to delve into that because I’ve got a couple of questions in my head. So here’s Jim Kim, my
Intro [23:08]
father could have been a great comedian, but he didn’t believe that that was possible for him. And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant. And when I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job. And our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want. So you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.
David Ralph [23:34]
Now, I struggle with those words, I hear them a lot. I hear him literally every day. And then depending on who I’m talking to, sometimes I struggle with those. Now with yourself. I’m interested, I’m intrigued by this. So you start creating a business, you think that you’re going to love it. And then as you’re actually working on it, you think actually it’s not fueling me is not making me happy. So I pivot and create predictable profits. And you sort of move along. Now of that, how much did you have to let go? And how much did you just have to sort of just tune slightly so it it did make you happy, and it did become your sort of your legacy work because I see the love piece, the passion bit as being almost an Achilles heel sometimes that people feel that they’ve got to keep on going and going and going because I started on something that they thought they were going to love. How much did you live big leave behind Charles.
Charles Gaudet [24:35]
So there are things that you do in your business that give you energy. And then there are things that you do in your business that just take away your energy. And so, gentleman named Dan Sullivan coined this term as unique ability when you’re working and your unique ability and your or you know, you could also call this your your zone of genius. It’s the things that just give you energy if I was To fly to London, and we meet up at three o’clock in the morning, and we’re both absolutely exhausted. There’s a question that I can ask you about your business that will just automatically fuel you up, give you this power, energy, and you just start talking over and over and over again. That’s the type of thing that we want to get more of. Because in all business, you go through these cycles of success and struggle and success and struggle. And in those moments of struggle, it’s going to be that that energy, that passion, that excitement, that’s going to continue to push you all the way through. But then there’s going to be those things in the business that you just don’t like to do that you really detest, it takes away your energy. And while you might be able to be okay with it, and good times, because you’re filling your pockets, and moments of struggle, it exponentially makes it that much more difficult. And it’s harder to succeed. So when I started managed marketing, what I realised was that what I didn’t enjoy was writing all the copy. And during the execution and all that other jazz, it didn’t really enjoy it, it took out a lot of energy, I was feeling burnt out. And that’s how I knew that might not be the right direction. Now, I could have hired people and put people in place and do all that other jazz. And that’s definitely one route that I could have taken. But what I was really, really awesome at and where I enjoyed it the most was on the actual coaching part. And more and more people started to seek me out to get my advice. And I realised, wow, I really, really enjoy the coaching part, and not the other part that takes my energy away. So it wasn’t like all of a sudden, one morning, I woke up and I got bone, I am going to completely terminate this idea of, of doing the marketing stuff, I just started saying, You know what, I’m gonna do more of what’s working and less of what’s not. So I’m going to take on more coaching clients. And I’m going to take on less marketing clients, until eventually my coaching income replaced my marketing income. And then I just continued to build and build and build and build and build the coaching, do more of what’s working. And that’s what brought me to where I am today.
David Ralph [27:29]
Now, when you’re at that point, it’s a journey you have to go on. Because you can’t find the love until you actually find for love. So this bit that like Jim Carrey talks about and people say, look for the passion. Is that wrong advice? Should people just be finding the passion in the subject once so into it and not try to think of something that they’re going to love from the outside? You know, I speak to so many people, and they’re always looking for, oh, I’d like to make a business based on football because I really like football. But I personally feel they’re missing a point or are they? She is what what’s your opinion on it, Charles.
Charles Gaudet [28:10]
So I have known so many people that use this idea of I’m going to do it once I find what juices me up once I find what excites me as it procrastinates. It’s almost like an act of procrastination that prevents them from actually achieving the life that they otherwise could be achieving for themselves. The most important thing to do is actually just start something, whatever that might be start something. Now usually when I’m asked this advice, and they’re like, Well, what is it that I should start? And I said, Well, if I was to follow you into Barnes and Nobles, for example. And you were just on your own with no preset agenda, where are you going to go and Barnes and Nobles with which section? And some people might say, well, that’s sort of gravitate, I guess, a little bit towards maybe the health section. Okay, great. So you’re gonna gravitate towards the health section? And what are the type of books that you’re going to read and problems that you’re going to solve and so forth. And then they start talking about that. And I’m like, Okay, well, so now what we’re saying is, let’s start diving into exploring that as a possible business opportunity for you. And then I was talking to somebody else, and they said, Well, I’m really, like, passionate about fiction. And I’m like, Okay, interesting. Tell me more about that. I love fiction. When I say I love fiction. I literally read a book every other day. I finish one book every other day. I love it. I love it. Love it, love it, but I can’t make a business out of it. It’s like well, what do you wait a minute, there plenty of people that have made business out of action. Let’s just talk about that a little bit more. What kind of action do you really enjoy? Let’s look at some of the different ways that people have If I made a business out of fiction, do any of these actually speak to you? And then it’s a matter of Okay, so this kind of speaks to me, you know, but I don’t know if I’m really going to like it. But it kind of speaks to me. And it’s like, awesome. Let’s start. Because we’re only going to know what’s working and what’s not working. Only when we start collecting data, the only way we’re going to collect data is to make something happen. We just have to start. I am so
David Ralph [30:31]
I’m gonna jump in it because I love this because I’d never thought about a bookstore. Because a bookstore is like, a walking around internet, isn’t it? Yeah, sort of, you’re in there. And there’s sections here and there and stuff. And that gives me total clarity there. As you were saying that I knew instantly what books sections that I would go to. But I’ve never heard in 3000 episodes, anybody say it? So clearly, Charles, right, go into a bookstore, wander around, and then look at what you’re actually picking up. Genius.
Charles Gaudet [31:08]
Well, thank you. But you know, that’s, that’s one of the things that it all comes down to just making sure that you start something. So if you’re sitting there and you’re like, I don’t know what I want to do in this very moment. And I’ll go through what Charlie’s talking about. And think about that bookstore, idea and so forth. But at some point, you got to put a stake in the ground. So you got to look at the calendar and say, You know what, I’m only gonna give myself X amount of time, whatever I do, I come up with by such and such a date, that’s when I’m going to do and that’s it, period. And you have to have the discipline of following through on what it is that you’re gonna say you’re gonna do. Now, actually, if I may, David, can I talk a little bit about discipline for
David Ralph [31:51]
a second, and one of them certainly can is a podcast, and that’s why we’ve got you here.
Charles Gaudet [31:56]
Story. So entrepreneurs at all levels, they inadvertently allow themselves to create a habit of failure. And they do that over and over and over and over again. Because as an entrepreneur, or as a CEO, unless you have a board of directors, unless you have advisors, unless you have other investors and so forth. There’s nobody that’s going to relentlessly hold you accountable. There’s no consequences for missing your goal, other than you look back and you slap yourself on the wrist. So inevitably, entrepreneurs, they start on on day one, or it doesn’t matter, it could be, you know, 510 years down the road, just usually, as they move on, they tend to realise the ways of their of their mistakes, but they start their business and they go, oh, here I go, I’m gonna make a million dollars this year. And that means I’m going to do this, and then we’re gonna do that. And then a quarter rolls around, and they didn’t do it. The year rolls around. They didn’t do it. They didn’t do it this year, I’m gonna go ahead. And I’m gonna just do it next year. And every time they say they’re going to do something, they allow themselves to not do it. And the first time they do it, it’s like, Damn, that sucks. But then the next time they do it, it’s like, oh, well, and then all of a sudden goals don’t matter anymore. They build this habit of failure, and it’s okay for them to fail. I have this one gentleman. He a Jewish Russian immigrant. And he came over to the United States as a young child, his dad, and mom struggled so much that his dad would get paid. I think it was $20 a day, if I remember right to paint pools inside of pools. You remember sitting in the apartment, when his dad came home, they brought food and for the kids, him and his brother and put the food on the table. And him and his brother ate. And he looked at his dad and remembered a conversation between his mom and his dad that he didn’t bring enough food for. He and his wife, because they didn’t have enough money. He only brought enough food for the kids. So fast forward a few years. My my friends, my client decided he was going to start a business. And so he started a business and worked really, really hard and would set goals and would achieve the goals. And when we started working together at this point, he had now taken his business to just about a million dollars a year. And he set a goal and he would hit it and you’d set a goal and he would hit it and then eventually he set this one goal and this one goal would be much more money than he has ever made in many, many, many months combined. I mean, it was a monsterous goal. And he turned around, and he was about $5,000. Short. We’re talking monster goal he had already used short, but already made more money than any other timeframe at any other given point in the company, bar, not any any normal person would have celebrated and been ecstatic. And as his coach, I said, Congratulations, that was really phenomenal. You broke all these records. And he stopped. And he said, Charlie, I’m going to just tell you this once. And then we’ll never have this discussion again. And I said, What’s this, and he said, I failed. In order for us to continue working together, you need to celebrate when I win. And I need you to hold me accountable to when I fail, so that we never let this happen. Again, I set a goal, and I need to achieve my goals don’t allow me to create this habit of failure. And so we’ve now been together for six years, this company is now doing over $45 million dollars. And in the six years, seven years or so that we’ve been together, I think he’s only ever missed his goal, maybe twice. And when he has this goal, there were plenty of times when he would work until maybe, you know, two, three o’clock in the morning, then run home, get a couple hours of shut, I then come back in and work again and work all weekends. And just it was insane. Now granted, his goals were very aggressive. So it required a lot of action, and resources to achieve them. But when I look at this particular gentleman, one of the main reasons why he’s so successful is because when he sets these goals, they’re very intentional. And he knows that come hell or high water, he’s going to achieve those goals. He doesn’t allow himself to create this habit of failure. Now I said to him, his name is Michael. So Michael, your mindset is phenomenal. One of the most disciplined strongest mindsets that I’ve seen, what is it about your mindset that has allowed you to grow through these grow through these times and literally create an enormous amount of pain as he’s working till three o’clock in the morning, he gets up again at five just to make sure he hits a goal. And he said, it brings me all the way back to looking at my dad, who was unable to provide for you put food on the table for him and my mom. And it’s a matter of survival for me, I will always do what it is that I say I can do so that I can take care of my parents now. And I can take care of my family and everything else. For me, it’s not about the money. It’s about survival. And I just thought it was so fascinating. And really, this is one of those moments that you know, even though he’s a client of mine, this is when I work with some of the most brilliant people on the planet. But I get to learn from them too. And at this moment, I learned from him and I go, Wow, that really is a key distinction right there. A key distinction that separates one person from another. You see, we we look at Ink Magazine, and we read all these books, and we see all these people that are doing extraordinarily well. And like Michael, people look at Michael success, and they they focus on the wrong things they focus on, okay, you did this strategy, and you did this strategy. And if I just duplicate this strategy, then maybe I could get the same results. Now strategy is part of the formula. And that we have to understand that just action and mindset alone isn’t enough, obviously, strategy is a very significant part of the formula. But if you’re gonna bake a cake, and you forget to put the sugar around, you’re gonna get a totally different result. And in this case, when we look at all the stuff that the successful people are doing, they focus in on the strategy and they try to duplicate the strategy and they don’t get the result they go, Hmm, what’s wrong, you know, what’s wrong with this equation? And for many of these people, it’s about having the discipline to see all the way through to do what’s absolutely required to get things done. And and have that accountability if you don’t hire somebody, you know, to hold you accountable as the relationship between Michael and I, if you don’t hire somebody to hold you accountable, then you need to be able to have the discipline to hold yourself accountable. Now Michael can really hold himself accountable. And you know, he’s he’s of that of that discipline of mindset as well. But yeah, you know, it is that ruthless accountability. That is, that is important in the mindset to create that habit of, of success.
David Ralph [40:30]
Now, all the way through that story, the image that I kept and having was nothing to do with Michael, it was to do with every school in the world. But the kids come out of sports day laden with trophies and certificates. And they can barely run. And I used to say to them, oh, did you win? Now? What’s the trophy for? You know, nowadays, we celebrate anything, we we don’t want anyone to feel the touch of failure on them. We don’t want, you know, the fat kid who’s never going to win at the soccer game to be sort of less than when, I don’t know Tom Brady, or whatever, you know, he hasn’t got that. So you Michael Michaels just got his own barometer of what success means to him, where the world now seems to have outside influences saying to them, don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it, here’s a trophy to take home, put that on your shelf, you feel good about yourself?
Charles Gaudet [41:31]
Well, when you learn to walk, you learn to walk through falling. And you realise, okay, this didn’t work, this didn’t work, this didn’t work, this didn’t work. And then eventually you learn to walk. And struggle is required to build robustness in ourselves as a character. And as an entrepreneur, as a leader, and so forth. There’s an old Chinese proverb that says, you know, the trees grow stronger, where the wind blows harder. And so by nature of handing everybody the trophies and ribbons and whatnot, or just doing whatever it is, we’re building a culture of weak individuals, the strongest individuals are going to be the ones that, that get rejection that go through periods of struggle. And then, as adults and as leaders and so forth, it’s about coaching them through what they can do differently to improve the next time. And that’s how we build strong character and strong leaders and strong entrepreneurs and so forth is just understanding that we’re gonna fall down a few times, and let’s learn, look, I can tell you right now, being a father of three kids, one of the hardest things is to let my kids fail. But I’ve learned that unless my kids come to me for advice, and the as doubt, what should I do in this situation, that I’m going to sit back, and I’m going to watch. And of course, if it means that they’re going to physically harm themselves, or others or whatever, if they’re going to do something that’s going to hurt or, you know, cause a massive problem, I’m going to step in and be like, Hey, guys, but if it’s if it just means that they’re going to fall down, as they learn to walk, have to let it happen. Because they learn so much more through that. And then what happens is, they’ll, they’ll fail. And then they’ll come to me and my son runs video marketing company, you know, he’s, he’s in high school now. But when right before in high school, when he was younger, he would bring on these clients, and he knows what I do for a living. So he knows he can come to me for advice, but he wanted to prove to himself that he could do it on his own. And so he the way he was just working with clients, he wasn’t asking the right questions to set the expectations. And that forced him to do a lot go back and do a lot more video editing and a lot more video editing. Until finally he realised, Oh, this isn’t working. I need to ask better questions. And it’s like, Ah, there you go. You figured it out. And then he came to me? And he said, What are the types of questions that I need to ask in advance to make sure that I understand my clients expectations, so that it’s less work for me, and they’re even happier? And it’s like, ah, brilliant. I’m so glad you asked that question. But if I told them in advance, he never would have taken that advice. Anyway.
David Ralph [44:22]
Now before we send you back in time on the Sermon on the mic to have a one on one with your younger self, taking us right back to the very part of their conversation with gratitude. Are you more grateful because of the difficulties or are you just a naturally grateful person? I’m really I’m always intrigued why some people can see a glass overflowing and other people need to really work at it. Did it come naturally to you?
Charles Gaudet [44:52]
I wish I could say that it did. You know, I had have massive successes in my life. And I’ve also had massive failures in my life. There’s a point in my life back in the early 2000s, when I had already at this point created my first multi million dollar business. On the surface, you could look and go, Wow, everything is going so well for him. But then I was out in Whistler Canada, and I was talking with a guy named Tony Robbins, some some people, many of your listeners may be familiar with who he is. He’s like a peak performance, Coach type of person. And he asked me,
What do you want? Like, what is it that you want? And I looked at him and I go, You know what?
I just want to be happy. And, you know, I ended up investing over six figures with Tony Robbins, I travelled the world with him, my wife, my wife, and I travelled the world and just learning different things. And it was through that period of working with Tony, and then continuing that journey of personal development, that, you know, I realised so many of my struggles, if I didn’t have that, it wouldn’t have led me to this, which made it out, which caused me to meet this person that brought me here. And wow, it turned out to be something really great. Like I named Dr. John Demartini, introduce what you said earlier, which was a yin yang, but actually explained it to such a way that I’m like, wait a minute, and he says, yes, every positive has an equal and opposite negative everything all the way down, look at the smallest observable molecule that’s ever existed. And you’re gonna see that there’s still a positive and negative, there’s positive and negative to absolutely everything. Even if you look at you know, today’s rain forests were were once yesterday’s deserts. There’s, you know, there’s no straight line that’s ever been observable in the world, in the universe ever. Everything is curved, everything ebbs and flows. And so being the way that he was explained, I go, Wow, that’s amazing. And they and so we really went deep into showing how every challenge has with an equal opposite an opportunity. And I got that makes so much sense to me. So I grabbed hold of that. And at the beginning, I felt almost like I was lying to myself when something challenging was going on in my life. And I just kept repeating to myself, thank you, thank you, thank you until I believed, and I’m like, why am I thanking myself this is? And then, you know, over time, and particularly with my podcast, you know, I would originally say to myself, you know, why could this be in the world to happen to me at this moment, and then one of my podcast guests, as we’re talking about, it said, let’s change that word to four. Why could this be one of the best things to happen for me, and I’m like, oh, that’s even more powerful. And so I just started saying that to myself over and over and over again. And, you know, so it was, again, the struggle, where I just wanted to be happy, offered me the opportunity to look for answers to them, for me, came to this period of gratitude. And, like, David, I’m gonna tell you something I’m gonna try to say without actually tearing up. But my dad is having some real struggles right now. He just went through a second operation, brain cancer. Today, we have to make a call, very tough call. He’s not doing very well at all.
This is the hardest moment I’ve ever had to go through in my life. And I’m finding ways to be grateful. And it’s hard. But I have to remind myself there’s a blessing in a somehow somewhere. I believe it’d be true, I can’t see it. I promise you, I can’t see it.
But even in the most difficult moment of my life to this date. There’s something I promise you that we can be grateful for, and there’s going to be an opportunity and maybe opportunity is not the right word. So Let’s rephrase that a blessing that comes out of this.
David Ralph [49:50]
Normally, at this part of the show, we push you on to the sermon on a mic to have a one to one with your younger self. We’re not going to do this, Charles, because I don’t think that you’re going to be able to come out We have anything more powerful than what you just gave us bear. But no matter how hard the situation, no matter how difficult it is, there’s something bear that is the lesson. And that is the post that goes all the way through this episode, that finding gratitude in business, finding gratitude in your personal health, finding gratitude, in your personal situation, no matter what is happening, is it’s happening for you, and not to you powerful stuff. Charles, what’s the number one best way that our audience can connect with you?
Charles Gaudet [50:39]
The best way would be over at predictable profits.com. Again, that’s predictable. profits.com, we have a number of different resources available for CEOs that are asking them themselves questions like how do I grow my company faster? Or someone’s or fee someone’s or famine? How do we bring more predictability into the revenue? Just maybe the company’s to depend on our main how do we scale? Just head over to predictable profits.com. And you’ll see there’s again, a bunch of resources to help answer those questions.
David Ralph [51:08]
We’ll have over links in the show notes. Charles, thank you so much for spending time with us today, joining up those dots. And please come back again in another eight years when you have more dots to join up. Because I do believe that by joining up those dots and connecting our pasts is always the best way to build our futures. Charles godet. Thank you so much. Thank you.
So Charles godet. So we were talking about finding the gratitude in every situation. And at the moment he’s going through a difficult time, as you can imagine, with his parents, and his parents health. But believe me, no matter what is going on in life, it’s teaching you something, it could be teaching you to get healthier, it could be teaching you to just do things in a different way. But there’s always an opposing view, somebody’s always a winner for a loser. And in your life, you can decide whether you’re going to be the winner or the loser simply by stopping. Look at what is happening to you and think okay, how do I make this for me and not against until next time. We’ll see you again. Cheers. See ya. Bye bye.
Outro [52:22]
That’s the end of Join Up Dots. You’ve heard the conversation. Now it’s time for you to start taking massive action. Create your future create your life is the only life you’ve got. We’ll be back again real soon. Join Up Dots during the gods Join Up Dots during the gods Jolina Join Up Dots
