Show Notes:

Ownership obsession. “I have this belief that the key to all freedom is actually financial freedom. I think that if we don’t have ownership, we cannot actually be free— which is why I’m obsessed with people getting ownership in the lowest-risk way possible. I think if you, right now, are an employee with only your salary, no investments, and no ability for you to earn despite time tied to hours, that is hugely problematic. I saw that very early on. When I was in Latin America, people who just because of how much money they made and where they came from had a totally different life than I did. I became obsessed with this idea of getting people into boring businesses and getting a community of humans together who are all learning about how to get ownership — because it doesn’t really matter who you work for or how much money you make. I think that people should own more assets, whether that’s small businesses or real estate. I’m obsessed with people getting some ownership, and I think that started from seeing people who owned nothing and thus the world exerted their will on them as opposed to the other way around.”

Stop chasing unicorns. “I think we were sold a lie about what a unicorn is. Lots of people told us that a unicorn was a high-growth startup that eventually hit a billion dollars that changed the world and that we are best suited in pursuit of this type of mythical creature — if we get it, we’ll get on the cover of Forbes, we’ll be rich and famous, and we’ll be happy. In fact, the numbers tell us differently. 95-98% of us will never hit that number or get even close to it in any way, shape, or form, and we will just have spent years on couches, sleeping in garages, and not have actually built anything or achieved true financial freedom. What I would say to that is first, you don’t need to chase unicorns in order to have financial freedom. Simultaneously, I do not think you need to live in a small cabin in the woods, having sold your car and grow all of your own vegetables — unless you’re into that. I do think that we have a moral imperative to do everything we can with the skills and unique characteristics that we are each given. In my opinion, it’s different for everybody, but try to see what your actual velocity speed is and what you could actually accomplish.”

Low risk, high reward. “I’m definitely not the person you should follow if you want balance. I don’t think that’s part of my repertoire at all, but I don’t subscribe to this belief that we should have to sacrifice everything in order to achieve financial freedom. I actually think it’s much more achievable than we were told, which is why I obsess on talking to people about M&A. Why would you not go out and buy a profitable business that has existed already for 10 years, that has a high likelihood of continuing to exist, that’s profitable day one, and doesn’t have a ton of volatility in it, has a natural three to five percent growth curve year over year, and take a bet on something that feels more like a bond than a stock? That, to me, makes all the sense in the world, which is why I continue to push on it.”

Stick with it. “I’ve met very few entrepreneurs who ever go back and get a job. So what does that tell me? We like to bitch about it being hard, but being in charge is almost always better than not being in charge. When you talk to other entrepreneurs, we like to bemoan the difficulty and say, ‘God, our fucking employees don’t get it’ — which is true often, but simultaneously, the only reason that some people can’t run a business is because they’re lazy. They don’t want to actually do the work or they don’t have a high pain tolerance. It’s rarely incompetence. The stuff that we deal with, I don’t think is that difficult. I run laundromats and car washes and a media business, and none of this stuff is rocket science. I’m not creating robots. I’m not saving the world. What they key thing here though is, can you keep going after it gets hard? Now, can everybody run a business that does seven figures, eight figures, nine figures? No. Mathematically, it’s not possible, but can a lot more people have ownership or actually have skin in the game? Yes, and I think it’d be pretty cool and better for all of us if more people did it.

Every business is for sale. “There are seven reasons why people sell their businesses. We call them the Seven Horsemen of Sales: death, divorce, distress, disagreement, dullness, disease, and departure. So why would a small business owner sell? There’s been a death of the family; because they are getting divorced or they’re being forced to divorce; because they have a disagreement with their partner and so one of them wants to sell out of it; they’ve been running the business for five or 10 years and they’re ready for something else; they have a business in California, but they want to move to Florida because they’re ready to make a change. These are the reasons why every single day people leave businesses. In fact, any time I give a speech, I always do this little thing where I ask people, ‘Who here owns a business? Put your hand up.’ Then I ask ‘Who here would sell their business right now at the right price and the right terms?’ and every hand stays up with the exception of two or three people who are probably early in their business journey and wouldn’t sell. Almost every small business is for sale because there’s some low-grade stress and pain that comes with running a small business. For the most part, until you’ve made tens and tens and tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars, you’ll sell just about any business for the right price and terms in order to get that amount. I think once you get to a Warren Buffett level, your businesses might legitimately not be for sale, but even for that, I bet at the right price, they would be.”

Savvy selling. “If you’re trying to sell your law firm or if you’d like to sell your law firm, you need to figure out what buyers want. The first and foremost thing is you actually need to understand the flip side. What makes somebody want to buy a business? Once you understand how to buy a business, you will incidentally increase your ability to sell a business. It’s much easier to convince somebody of something when you speak their language and when you understand their wants and needs.

What does being a game changer mean to you? “A game changer is the type of human who realizes that most of the things they want in life are actually possible and then takes action to achieve them. The worst thing that could happen is at the end of the day, you get to the pearly gates, you see whatever your version of God is, and you think, ‘Huh, I could have done all of those things, and instead, this is what I did with it’ — and that is totally in your ability to control and a tragedy for you and this country if more of us don’t step up to the plate. I’m very, very thankful for people like you who have a podcast like this and people who listen to podcasts like this because we need more game changers.”

RESOURCES & REFERENCES

Contrarian Thinking
Contrarian Community
Forbes
Episode 151 of The Game Changing Attorney Podcast with Bill Perkins
The FIRE Movement
The FatFIRE Movement
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Henry David Thoreau
The 7 Horsemen of the Great Sell-Off
Warren Buffett
How To Build A Business That Will Sell For Millions (12 Month Plan)
Cashflow Businesses vs. Cashsuck Businesses
Exxon
Morgan Housel
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
Contrarian Thinking’s Small Biz Buyer Insights Report 2024