100: Six of the Best Lessons I've Learned from Interviewing 100 Entreprenuers

Behind Their Success: Episode 100

[00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome to Behind Their Success Podcast. I'm Paden Squires, the

host, and today we have a very special episode for you today. It is episode number 100. So over

the past a hundred conversations, we've had a lot of different entrepreneurs, founders, risk

takers, game changers, um, on this show that have done a lot of cool, huge, big things.

Paden Squires : And, you know, along the ways I've been inspired, I've been challenged, I've

been surprised and humble, and I've learned a few things that, you know, I wanna share with

you guys, that I've learned from these entrepreneurs as I've interviewed, you know, a hundred

plus of them now, and, and my top six lessons that I've learned from them, to recap kind of what

all we've talked about and, and, and to share some practical steps, right?

So.

let's kind of pull back, my top six lessons that we've learned on Behind their Success podcast

through the first a hundred [00:01:00] episodes.

Number one, think big, think bigger than you think is possible. So this was probably one of my

biggest struggles as early in my entrepreneurial career. Coming from a small town background,

not necessarily knowing any millionaires growing up, I had a very limited idea of what I was

capable of. And this is what this lesson is really teaching me and teaching all of us, is that you

don't know enough about yourself to know what you are truly capable of.

Yes. You might know enough about your current version of yourself, and I would challenge you.

Yeah. You probably don't even know that. But the cool thing about like living life forward is that

as you garner new skills, as you bring in new information, as you develop yourself, you will

become more and more capable.

and in your current state, you can't even comprehend that. Right. Or you can't even rationalize

that of. Man, I may be able to get so good that I could make a [00:02:00] hundred million dollars

or, or whatever that, you know, goal or number is. But many of us really shrink our goals. you

know, back down based on where we are currently and what we think is possible in our current

state.

Not realizing that. Of course, if you change your state, you continue to grow. You keep listening

to great entrepreneurs taking in great information and working on yourself, most importantly,

along with your business you really don't know how far this game can go and how big you can

grow stuff.

you know, my number one lesson taken away so far through this, journey interviewing all these

entrepreneurs is you need to think bigger. You know, if you have big goals, you need to make

'em even bigger. And, you know, when they say, oh, you shoot for this, you know, shoot for the

moon and you'll land among the stars, or, or whatever.

But, it is true, push your goals big and then realize, you know, if you get anywhere near 'em, um,

you're gonna be a lot better off than you, than you've ever dreamed of. Second biggest

takeaway from these a hundred episodes is you need to build systems, not just your own

[00:03:00] skill. the main difference between those who thrive and those who barely survive in

business is often the presence of good systems and routines.

I'm gonna say that again. The difference between those who thrive in business and those who

barely survive. Is the presence of good systems and routines. After talking with so many

founders, it's clear that delegation habits and repeatable processes, free up entrepreneurs, time

to work on the business and not just in it.

You know, most of my listeners here, I assume are a lot of 'em, and I not just assume we have

data on, on a lot of you guys, but really, All businesses are scalable and they're all scalable to

different degrees, but none of them are scalable without systems and processes. And, you

know, if you're still just starting out on business and haven't built a team yet, just realize that

you're not gonna [00:04:00] go very far without system and processes.

And, and of course, you know, and this is what happened in, in my business and in my world, is

that. I started my business as a, you know, as a solo practitioner, you know, I maybe had one

two employees for the longest time. And a lot of that was, me just kind of showing up and doing

the work.

And, you know, of course I would train my, you know, my couple employees and they would do

some stuff for us, but we had no systems in place. We had no ability for the business to operate

if Peyton wasn't there. And the, the issue with that is you can't grow an end into something like

if, if the business is.

Literally capped on the amount of time that you can spend in it. Well, it's, it's literally capped on

how much you wanna work. And that isn't a business that I'm certainly interested in building and

certainly not one that you can build into multi multimillions of dollars. if it's literally just revolves

around you.

And guess what? no one will pay you for your business either, right? Your, your asset, your

business, you're growing that you think, you know you wanna sell [00:05:00] someday or might

be worth some money someday. If it all just revolves around you and like you, doing the work,

bringing in the clients, all those things, well, guess what?

You don't have a business that's worth anything because the second you step out of it, it all

stops. And why would I, you know, say theoretically come in and buy your business that you're

gonna step out of, would, you know? And then there's no systems and processes there would,

what would I even be buying?

So build systems, not just skill number three, lesson that I have learned so far, purpose over

profits. So many of my guests have pivoted away from comfortable careers or bigger paychecks

to actually build something that is more aligned with their personal values. So the lesson to take

outta that is when work is driven by a clear sense of purpose, not just money.

And money's great, right? Um, money's a great tool to have, [00:06:00] but when your work is

driven by a clear sense of purpose and not just money, not only are even a fill, greater

fulfillment, but the business tends to last and grow more sustainably. So I understand that, right?

So profits have to be there, right?

To have any successful business that lasts for any amount of time, profits have to occur. Um,

businesses don't exist if there isn't a profitable venture going on there. But more importantly, if

you wanna grow something that's big and, and does last around, it can't only be about the

profits, right? There has to be a general purpose.

A purpose of the business a big problem that the business solves, right? And one that you can

articulate, one that you can articulate and message to your, you know, your, your potential

customers of this is the problem we solve. So, you know, it's very important lesson takeaway

there to have a purpose and a problem that your company is solving [00:07:00] and not just.

Focused on generating cash. Of course, you gotta have both. The purpose, it's a little more

important. Number four, becoming a decision maker and not just a doer. This kind of goes back

to a little earlier lesson about systems. A recurring learning curve for entrepreneurs is moving

from the grinder to like the leader, right?

Or you've probably heard me say in previous episodes, the moving from the warrior to the king,

right? So in the beginning, right? Hopefully we're on these beginning stages. We're getting the

business off the ground. We're doing all their operations. You know, in my, in my world, it was, I

was doing every single tax return.

I was talking to every single client. I was licking every stamp and envelope. There literally was

nobody doing anything. But me, I was the full blown operator. Right? So the idea is to get the

transition from being just that operator. Um, because the, the, the problem is when you're, just

that operator.

You're not really thinking past today. Or you can to a degree, but not really, [00:08:00] right? Like

you have all these problems right in front of you. You're solving all these very short term, day-to-

day problems that there's nobody with their head up. Looking further down the road of where the

business is going and focusing on that and putting energy into that.

So it's very important to make that transition from being just a doer, an operator, right into a

decision maker. The quicker an entrepreneur can get to getting paid from doing some work for

somebody to getting paid to make decisions about their business, the more scalable and the

biggest, bigger the business is gonna be, and the better off the business is gonna be.

Speaker: Are you looking for a new tax experience, looking for an advisor that actually brings

you high level ideas and proactively plan so you aren't overpaying your taxes? Or how about

one that even just responds and communicates in a timely fashion? If any of that resonates with

you, you probably just have a tax preparer and not a tax planner.

And it is through the tax planning process where [00:09:00] all the value is found. And when Tax

Planning's done right, it has a positive return on investment. I'm Payden Squires, I'm a CPA and

owner of Squires Tax Planning. We work alongside entrepreneurs and high income earners,

helping them pay the least amount of income taxes, both legally and ethically.

We have saved our clients hundreds of thousands of dollars through specific strategies, and we

guarantee we can find multiple tax strategies that your current tax preparer hasn't told you

about. If that interests you, head over to squire's tax planning.com. There you can take our free

assessment to see how likely it is that you are overpaying on your income taxes.

From there, you can also book a free tax discovery call with our team to see what it would look

like to have us working for you.

Paden Squires : Number five, and this is a special one to me and and one I absolutely love is

embrace continuous learning and humility. Nearly [00:10:00] every high achieving entrepreneur

that I've interviewed underlines the importa of staying humble and hungry to learn. The most

successful ones are the ones who admit they don't know everything and proactively seek out

mentors.

Feedback and knowledge, especially when it's uncomfortable. So it's amazing. You know,

people, people outside of the entrepreneur space or even outside of the business owner space,

um, might see these successful entrepreneurs and think, man, they got it all figured out. They do

all these big things. They have grown this large business, but I, I have yet to may meet a truly

successful entrepreneur, one that's done it for years and years and years.

That isn't humble, that isn't one that is constantly taking in new information. And I, you know, I, I

put to you force why, why those two things, why continuous learning and humility go hand in

hand is because, you know, you, you can't put new information in a brain that isn't willing

[00:11:00] to accept it. You can't put new information in a brain, um, new piece of information in

a brain if they've already decided.

They have it Figure it out, right? That new information is never gonna sink in there. and, you

know, we all have false assumptions. We all believe things that aren't true. And, and in many

ways, we need experience or other people to tell us and teach us that, you know, whatever

beliefs we have in certain areas, they, they just aren't true.

And how they, you know, how things operate in the world. So it's so important. Every one of

these entrepreneurs that I have on are people that. Read books, read podcasts are part of

mastermind groups, part of groups of other high achieving entrepreneurs, part of groups of

people that are, you know, 10, a hundred steps in front of them because they want to get around

the people doing the biggest, baddest things.

Because you know, just being in that proximity, you'll be able to figure out how people do things

and continue to grow and constantly be up leveling your game. And number six, the number six

[00:12:00] lesson I have learned on behind their success is saying yes to opportunities, but also

learn how to say no as well.

Right? So part of part of the growth and the entrepreneur journey begins with saying yes, right?

Begins with saying yes to quit your job too. Take a chance to get outta your comfort zone, right?

Like, you know, for me it was quitting my corporate job in 2014 and opening up my business in

my living room, right?

and from there it was, oh man, okay, I gotta find how to get clients. I gotta find out how to

actually run a business. 'cause you know, while, while I had a Master's in business

administration before I ran a business, very little clue what I was doing in the real world. Um,

when actually operating a business.

So it's important in the beginning to absolutely say Yes, man. You gotta say yes to opportunities.

You gotta say yes to all the, you know, all these different opportunities that allow you to begin

planting seeds [00:13:00] and, and putting energy in your business to actually grow it, right?

There's things that I did in the first.

Call it seven years of my business that, you know, I was just out hustling. I was out networking, I

was out doing all these things, just trying to drum up business and get my name out there. And

many of those things, um, they don't work out, right? Like, are you gonna go to an event? And

it's just like a total waste.

And you're like, why did I even do that? Right? Like, I, what productive came out of it? But the

thing is like, you know, one of those meetings you show up to, you're gonna find some amazing

client, or you're gonna find some amazing purses that becomes, you know, an advocate of yours

and, and sends business your way.

but you can't find those people without just showing up to all the events. Right? So it's, it's

constantly putting your, you know, in the beginning it's really constantly putting yourself out there

and saying yes to a lot of stuff. I mean, the stuff I did, you know, the. I would constantly just say

yes to people, to like, yeah, sure, I'll do the work.

And I had to go figure out how to do it. And, [00:14:00] and, and it wasn't, it was just because I

needed to bring in work. I wanted to, you know, say yes to as much as possible and plan as

many Cs as I could, out in the world, right? but then at some point it becomes a shift and where

it becomes more important to start saying, no.

Two more things that you say yes to, right? So I probably had that flip I five, six years ago, I'd

say probably five years ago, to where I really needed to focus on start saying no to

opportunities. Right? You know, the first, first, call it six years in my business it was all about

more, more, more, more, right?

And, and trying to do more and spread my reach of my company as far as possible. Say after

2020, the shift became focus, focus. It becomes what problems do we solve? What clients do

we help? What clients don't we help? And, and becoming very specific about the problems you

solve and the, [00:15:00] beauty of that is because if you solve very specific problems for very

specific people.

It can be very valuable and you can build your own processes around solving these same

problems for these people because you've done it a hundred times before. You know what

problems you're walking into and you have the solution and you know what are the solutions

and you can build a very repeatable process around that.

But if you're like me in the beginning of my firm who just did anything for anybody who said that

would give me a dollar. At some point that's not scalable, right? You have to be able to break

that and get into a model that has a very specific niche, you know, as, as specific as you can

get, but figuring out what problems you can solve and not just trying to solve every problem for

every person.

'cause once again, causes a lot of issues. You know, if you're, a generalist. You know, in my

industry this is a huge problem. 'cause everybody's a generalist, right? They do taxes for every

industry, or they do, you know, taxes and payroll and [00:16:00] bookkeeping and all these

different things. And it turns out it's like, you could be a 10 in one of those areas, but instead

you're like a five in all of them, right?

And it's not super helpful to the client because you don't have amazing solutions for 'em. And

you're also spread thin, doing a million different things, and you're not that good at any of 'em. It

becomes a point where in the beginning it's a yes, yes, yes. And at some point it triggers and

switches to.

You need to start saying no and get more focused and more narrowed in what you do. So guys,

that is the top six lessons I have learned in the first a hundred episodes of Behind Their

Success. You know, I have a lot of people to thank for this podcast. couple people that come to

Ryan and Marie. Marie is my podcast editor.

She has been with me from the beginning. She has edited every single one of these podcasts.

Um, another person is Tia. she is, uh, my marketing gal and, you know, encouraged me to do

this and put myself out there. And all these, you know, both these [00:17:00] ladies, helped me

design processes around this to where.

I didn't just start a podcast and release three episodes and never do another one again, like

most podcasts. So, you know, while, I'm the host and get, you know, some of the fanfare and

stuff out of this, there's a lot of people behind the scenes making a lot of this stuff work that

allows me to just kind of show up and do my thing.

So I appreciate, you know, all you guys, all you listeners, you know, all you previous guests that

took the time, especially early, some of my buddies that are, really big business owners that, just

to took an hour of their time to come on my show in the very beginning, when, guess what guys,

no one was listening, you know, might've got like four downloads.

Uh, uh, you know, I appreciate that guys. You know, it, it, none of this could have been done all

by myself. it's because of you guys, the listeners and, and the guest and, and, and all the people

behind the scenes that the show, you know, still goes on. So guys, you know, we have big plans.

You know, we're, we're not stopping anytime soon.

We're going to [00:18:00] continue to put out great content, you know, interviewing

entrepreneurs around the country. and getting their stories and practical advice for you guys to

use, you know, in your own lives, right? and further your own lives, further your own businesses,

and, just learn how to operate in the world a little better.

Right? So guys, thank you so much for, you know, continue to listen to the show. I would

absolutely, if you haven't reviewed it or, or liked it or shared it, that would do, a huge favor for

me. If you could review the show on, whatever you're listening to this on Apple or Spotify or

whatever that is, please leave us a review.

You know, we want to keep growing this and reaching as many entrepreneurs as we can, and

just having a good time. Like I said, you know, I've said this many times in this show, is that

recording podcast is one of the favorite thing I do. You know, having these conversations with

these entrepreneurs, me just learning stuff, the amazing people I, you know, I meet that gone on

Shark Tank or sold 'em.

$50 million business and, there's stories behind that to me, I [00:19:00] just, I absolutely love

that. So guys, I appreciate you sticking with me. I appreciate you investing your time and me

and this show, and we don't take that for granted and we're gonna continue to add value and,

um, keep showing up.

We appreciate you guys and thank you so much. I'm humbled to have got to a hundred

episodes. You know, in the beginning, I don't know. I didn't know if I'd make it this far or not, but

here we are and I tell you what, we're not stopping. So tune back in to the next show and we'll

have some more great content with some awesome entrepreneurs telling their stories.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you found it valuable, please rate,

review, and share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people as we're

trying to accomplish our goal of help creating more healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs.

You can follow us on social media by searching for me Paden Squires.

Or going to padensquires.com on the website and social media. We're [00:20:00] always

sharing tips of personal growth and there we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks guys.