Your Seat at the Table - Real Conversations on Leadership and Growth
Join hosts Mike Maddock and John Tobin as they delve into authentic stories of leadership, decision-making under pressure, and the invaluable lessons learned along the way. Each episode offers candid conversations with seasoned leaders, exploring the challenges faced, the triumphs celebrated, and the insights gained from real-world experiences. Whether you’re an aspiring leader or a seasoned executive, pull up a chair and find your seat at the table.
Your Seat at the Table - Real Conversations on Leadership and Growth
From Rock Bottom to Purpose-Driven Author: Mike Michalowicz on True Success
In this powerful episode of Your Seat at the Table, hosts Mike Maddock and John Tobin sit down with best-selling author, entrepreneur, and business mentor Mike Michalowicz.
Mike opens up about his dramatic journey from a financially driven entrepreneur — complete with luxury cars and big ego — to losing everything during the 2008 financial crisis. He shares how hitting rock bottom led him to rediscover his true purpose: to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty.
You’ll hear candid stories of how his daughter tried to rescue him with her piggy bank, how he wrestled with shame and perfectionism, and how these experiences fueled his iconic books, including Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, and Clockwork.
Mike also breaks down what makes a great book, the importance of an identity shift for authors, and his philosophy of using money as a tool for service rather than self-worth.
"This episode contains some mild language."
About the guest:
Mike Michalowicz is the author of multiple best-selling business books, including Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, Fix This Next, and more. He is a sought-after speaker, mentor, and the creator of Profit First Professionals, an organization dedicated to helping entrepreneurs achieve financial health and freedom.
About the hosts:
Mike Maddock is the founder of Flourish Advisory Boards, a public speaker, and a serial entrepreneur known for helping leaders transform big ideas into reality.
John Tobin is the co-founder and president of Slalom Consulting, a global consulting firm helping organizations tackle their most ambitious projects and build a culture of innovation and trust.
Timestamps:
0:00 — Introduction and meeting Mike Michalowicz
3:00 — From starter to author: the evolution of Mike's career
8:00 — Hitting rock bottom and losing everything
15:00 — Discovering a new purpose: eradicating entrepreneurial poverty
21:00 — Writing Profit First and finding his calling
27:00 — Using books as powerful tools for service
33:00 — How identity shifts transform entrepreneurs and authors
41:00 — Money as a tool for good vs. ego-driven wealth
48:00 — Advice on writing impactful books and building community
55:00 — The ghost that drives Mike and how he keeps moving forward
Follow for more raw, honest leadership and entrepreneurship stories!
#Entrepreneurship #ProfitFirst #MikeMichalowicz #Leadership #AuthorLife #BusinessBooks #YourSeatAtTheTable #MikeMaddock #JohnTobin
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A good entrepreneur realizes that entrepreneurship really is about the expression of yourself. It's the ultimate platform of expression. Self-expression is an opportunity to put out your unique thing to the world. I thought entrepreneurship is about making money, about getting rich. That's a bad entrepreneur.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the Your Seat at the Table podcast with your hosts, Idea Monkey Mike Maddock and Ringleader John Tobin. We're two founders, a serial entrepreneur and a billion-dollar operator who talk to leaders about how, when, and why they made their most pivotal decisions in life. Join us as we share wisdom, mistakes, and a few laughs learning from the brightest minds in business today. Mike. Michalowicz is with us. Michael, you're a professional podcaster. How many episodes have you done?
SPEAKER_04:Just like as guests?
SPEAKER_01:No, like you have your own podcast. You've had it. So combined, how many have you been a guest? How many have you done? Is it
SPEAKER_04:hundreds? I've recorded on my own probably about 150, but I was canceled after two. So they're just archived. I never made it to air.
SPEAKER_01:Wait a minute. I've listened to your podcast. It's good. Yeah,
SPEAKER_04:you probably listened to episode one or two. Oh,
SPEAKER_01:my God. I thought it was really good. I don't know what happened. Anyway, thanks for coming. I
SPEAKER_02:love that your LinkedIn profile has the phonational spelling of your name. Yeah. Yes. The phonational spelling. How do you say that? Phonetical. Phonetical. Thank you. But phonational is even better. You like that?
SPEAKER_01:Because it's phonetically different. So on my website,
SPEAKER_04:there's a phonational link. At the top left, you click on it. And this is phonational because it pronounces the name improperly on purpose and starts iterating. So if you click on it, it's like some people think it's pronounced Michalowicz, but the real name back in high school was Michalischitz. Push again. And you keep on hitting it and it starts like bastardizing my name. So some people have been on my site for like a good three minutes just listening.
SPEAKER_01:Just messing with it. For people that don't know Mike, you ought to, particularly if you're an entrepreneur or an author. Mike, would you describe yourself as a starter or a finisher in business?
SPEAKER_03:A starter.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So you've started how many businesses?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:More than half a dozen.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And those are ones that actually, like you probably had four or five in high school and then grade school and then you got out of school. You've built and sold how many businesses?
SPEAKER_04:I've sold two. I had a Fortune 500 exit, private equity deal. I've invested now. I'm in 12 companies and we exit a couple. And then I have three of my own that I'm either... the majority owner or exclusive owner right now?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I met Mike. Actually, John and I both met Mike in the same place. We met him in the Endicott house. at MIT. And we were both part of Birthing of Giants that then became Gathering of Titans. So my first day of BOG, which was supposed to be a three-year program, and our class has made it go more than 20 now, Mike sat next to me. And Mike, beyond being a bestseller, author, bestselling author and amazing entrepreneur. He's also holds the record for the person that has made me snort liquids out of my nose more than anyone else in the world. I've got milk, beer, water, reverse. Cause you may, you're so funny. He made me laugh. So, um, Mike, tell me, would you rather be an author or an entrepreneur and why?
SPEAKER_04:Well, okay. Today, an author, uh, in the past, an entrepreneur. Because I think the author, we have this platform of expression that is really unique in that it's been around since the beginning of the written script, since writing. And so it has such a great history. But dollar for dollar, I think there's no greater form of impact in writing I do what's called prescriptive nonfiction. So for one purchase of 25 bucks, or you can go to the library and get for nothing, you can get a whole download of someone's thoughts. And if they do a good job, they compile it for you in such a way that's so consumable. Or you can have the greatest entertainment in the world for nothing. And it has this history. It can stick around. Some of my favorite books are 100 years old and self-help. The funny thing, too, about books is you can be honest about it. So the critical feedback you can give, you can hear what other people feel and get engaged for what will serve you. It's funny. I was like, does really every book get criticism? So I said, well, one book that probably hasn't is the Bible. So I'm going to look it up. The Bible has like thousands of one stars. And I'm like, how are you? One person said too much storytelling.
SPEAKER_01:Too much storytelling. No, better because, like, who has the balls to do it once? It's like the lightning bolt to shoot you off the earth. What's the upside? What's the upside of giving it a one star? There's no upside. I'm going to give it five stars. I don't know. I'm giving it five. I'm just going to do it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. It was so funny. It was so funny. So I think it's the greatest vehicle. It's a labor of love. I'm not inherently... a good writer, but I will do all nighters to write the best I can.
SPEAKER_01:John, do you mind if I run with this a few minutes? Sure. I was just going to
SPEAKER_02:ask, though, how we got into it with the toilet paper entrepreneur. That was your first one, right? Did you always want to be a writer and then you had success in business and now you had a story to tell? Or that first book, because I haven't written any. Mike's written, what, three or four. But I haven't done it. And I'm just curious, what got you started?
SPEAKER_04:In part, I got attributed to Vern Harnish. We were in that group. He was telling people, write the book. I didn't always want to be a writer. I didn't always want to be an entrepreneur. These paths I took were unexpected. When I graduated school, I said, I'm going to get one job for one company and get a pension. That's what I grew up under, and I couldn't get a job, so I became an entrepreneur effectively. And then when I sold some businesses, I think the interesting part of my CV was bottoming out. It happened during GOT. 2008, I lost everything. I was just pure arrogance. I wanted to have the biggest house. I wanted to have the most cars. I got a place out in Hawaii. I wanted to live large. And it's funny. I say this when I do a speech now. I say there's a... There's a word in the Webster dictionary. I did look it up. If you are arrogant, familiar was an ignorant. What's the word in the words dick? I become a dick. I was a total dick and not like outwardly, but I was. Dickie. And I thought it was, John, if I saw you and Mike, I'm better than those dudes. I wouldn't say it to your face. No, actually, you did say it to my face, which is rude. And I had a Dodge Viper, which is the winning trophy of dicks. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:that is the dick mobile. I had
SPEAKER_04:a dick mobile. Today, I'm proud to be dickless. I was de-dicked because I lost everything. And I think it was divine intervention. And it became... I actually have it right. I won't bore you with it, but I have to my side here. I'm in my home office. This journal I started, I was in EO at the time and I had a forum meet. It was YEO back then. And he goes, oh, you got to start journaling. Like it's a fucking diary is what it is. And I'm like, why? He's like, just to let out. He goes, it's the cheapest form of therapy. I started writing stuff and I hated God. I hated everything. I thought everyone was at fault except for me. And during that time, I had moments of clarity saying, at least I got the venting out. What's the reality? And I realized I'm not a good entrepreneur. I was lucky for those exits. They happened. I wasn't good at it. So I said, I'm going to figure out how to be a good entrepreneur. And I said, I don't know how to be profitable. And I devoted time to learning about profitability. I don't know how to be efficient. I'm a workaholic, and that's not good. And it became a journal that became, ultimately, I started writing for the Wall Street Journal on these ideas. And then they started to hit and I'm like, I got to become an author. And that's how I fell into it.
SPEAKER_01:I remember taking a walk with you in the woods behind Endicott house while you were going through that.
SPEAKER_04:I know I was trying to remove your shirt or that process.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. We're not, we promised we'd never talk about that
SPEAKER_03:publicly. I'm sorry. I was just being real. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. That is a different memory. That was a different guy. But anyway, I remember you were really grappling with, you know, what to do next. I think that, um, It's interesting you say you're a bad entrepreneur because, well, how would you define entrepreneurship? What do you think an entrepreneur is? What makes a good entrepreneur versus a bad one?
SPEAKER_04:I think I'm a gooder entrepreneur.
SPEAKER_01:No, seriously. You said I was a bad entrepreneur. Who's a good entrepreneur?
SPEAKER_04:A good entrepreneur realizes that entrepreneurship really is about the expression of yourself. It's the ultimate platform of expression, self-expression. It's an opportunity to put out your unique... thing to the world. I thought entrepreneurship's about making money, about getting rich. That's a bad entrepreneur. Yeah. That is a element that comes about because of what you do and the money. There was a dude, he found like Boston Chicken. I can't remember his
SPEAKER_01:name. Yeah, I remember.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. He was sitting there in our group. There's 80 of us in that room. I remember. A bell hit. I remember a bell, some kind of bell happened and he goes, oh, I just made money. he started talking to the group again it was the first time i heard someone say this kind of feeling that money is meant to come to you to be of service because he was such a at least i saw him as such a kind guy and he wasn't about making money he was about using money as a vehicle to serve in a great way and it was just that was one of the moments of alignment it's like oh it's not about making money it's about utilizing money i mean it's definitely living a life that gives you comfort and gives others comfort and support for your family. But entrepreneurship in its essence is expression of self.
SPEAKER_02:And that took me a while. I love that. I think I've never heard that said about being an entrepreneur. I, I think that's actually almost more inspiring than money than making the money. I I'm curious though, like the timing, like if I'm looking at your CV and you looks like you sold PG Lewis and associates, right? And then you mentioned 2008. So were you in the middle of a new adventure at that time? Or did the kind of financial crisis from the real estate issues and everything, did that– Did that end you? Did that ruin you? It didn't help, brother. It didn't help. What was it? You said that you kind of lost everything or went really down because it looked, on the surface, just looking at it, this, and especially who it went to, some bigger companies, it would be like, oh, you succeeded. You have it. But what turned it where you were in? Yeah, Robert
SPEAKER_04:Half International. It's a Fortune 500. It acquired my second company. First was a private equity. I sell a second one, and I'm like, oh. It's all about pump and dump. So like excluding the CVs, those companies were never fiscally healthy. They were growing fast organically, but it was a cashflow game. Like borrow from Peter to PayPal. I gotcha. Then I said, well, everyone becomes an angel investor. Once you build and sell and you know how to pump and dump. So I started doing angel investing. I had no clue I was doing. I was like, oh, here's 50 grand. Here's a hundred grand. I'm in, I'm in, I'm in.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I think I started, started. I invested in 10 companies and none of them, these were like college kids. These were just people doing whatever. There was no, there's nothing viable about
SPEAKER_01:it. You thought you were a Midas, right? Actually, one of the
SPEAKER_04:guys came to our session. It was Paul Scheider of Hedgehog Leatherworks.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:That was the only one that had potential and legs,
SPEAKER_01:but ultimately he decided to close it. I remember that.
SPEAKER_04:And then, so Angel Investor didn't know what I was doing. Spending money like this was my new lifestyle standard, like I'm going to make a million every single year, and just arrogant. And I knew that. I knew that as a reset. It was effing horrible. I went through depression, started to drink. It was
SPEAKER_01:a shitty period. You started to drink?
SPEAKER_04:There's a poem about two footprints on the beach, and then it becomes one set of footprints. Well, that was Mike Maddock rubbing oil over my body. And I'm standing there on my tip because that's why you can't see my footprints. That's how bad it
SPEAKER_01:was. That's beautiful. I always wondered what that poem was about. This whole time I've been totally misreading it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, a lot of people think it was like a religious thing and caring. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:I thought it was about God. No. Clearly, yeah. It was about some guy from New Jersey.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, another dude.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I've heard you talk about how your daughter came down with a piggy bank and said, I got this, I'll take it. And that must have been heartbreaking for you that she wanted to rescue you that's that's uh that feels like the bottom
SPEAKER_04:it was you know i i i actually i think humor is like my defense mechanism and maybe it's not even good humor but um i joke around things because they become uncomfortable oh my god this is a way out yeah but that was that was that was almost the rock bottom moment so what happened was i came to my family we lost our house to tell my wife and my three children were losing everything because I had been lying to them by omission, saying everything's okay. My wife was suspicious. I was not like myself, but I just saw the bank account dwindling, but couldn't accept it. I got the call from my accountant. He's like, dude, you're done. He's like, we got to declare bankruptcy for you or liquidate your remaining assets, but you're done. And I liquidated the remaining assets. The cars are gone, left our house, lost our house. And our neighbors knew the circumstances vaguely and just said, hey, we're going on sabbatical to Europe to do work. We need a house sitter. They gave us a house. And that's what got us through the next year and a half. Stayed in our town. It was shameful. My daughter, during that time, when I told my family, ran up to her room, grabbed her piggy bank, and she brings it to me and goes, daddy, daddy, I can pay our bills. But the rock bottom moment, while that was the most shameful moment, was probably over the next few days. It wasn't like you bounced back and, oh, I've got this. I started to booze hard, like for medication, not for pleasure, you know, like to be numb.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I remember falling asleep and saying, I just hope I don't wake up. I just hope I don't wake up because it's too painful to wake up. And that's not a suicidal thought. That was just, it was better to be unconscious than conscious. Yeah. And there was this floundering for a couple years, like, what do I do? But it was funny. This was a defining moment for me, and I tell aspiring authors this too, was there is this question that bounces around that says, if you have all the money in the world, what would you do, right? Which is a great question, because it gives you freedom. Like, if you didn't have a financial worry, there's a counter question, too, I found. If you have no money in this world, What do you want to do? And when there's a line between all the money in the world, what would you do? And no money in this world, if it's the same answer, that's call to calling. And I said, if I had all the money in the world, I think I'd be an author. I said, now that I have no money in this world, what do I want to do? I'm like, I got to be an author. I'm like,
SPEAKER_01:oh my God. That's what you told me. That's actually what you were saying earlier. while we were walking in the woods. She was like, I think I'm just going to start writing and be an author. And you'd already written, but you had like, I'm going to really, I, I remember you saying, yeah, I just messing around. Now I'm going to get serious about it. And you kind of turned your guns in that direction. And like all that energy that you had used to start your previous businesses was poured into writing. So what makes What makes a great book? And since you've done this, I want to hear, I'm sure there are a ton of people listening to this who are like, I've always wanted to write a book, but it feels too hard. And you've done seven or eight? I'm sorry. Yeah, nine, but who's counting? Yeah, yeah. Well, those first two. So anyway, you can't even count those. So you gave me a piece of advice. I'll see if you remember what it was. This is how you make a great book. But in your estimation now, after having done it a few times, tell me what a great
SPEAKER_04:thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, good.
SPEAKER_04:First element is there has to be, at least for me, an identity shift. I was an entrepreneur who wrote a book. Then there came a day that I am an author
SPEAKER_03:who
SPEAKER_04:happens to be an entrepreneur. I call it the Uber test. Next time you're in a car and the Uber driver goes, hey, so what do you do? What is your instinctual response? Mine used to be, oh, I'm an entrepreneur, you know, a business owner.
SPEAKER_01:I'm a dancer.
SPEAKER_04:I'm a dancer, right? I'm a dancer. Like, here's my oil. Then I had a moment where Uber's like, what do you do? I'm like, I'm an author. He's like, oh, I've never had an author in the car. What do you write? Once that's your declaration definition of who you are, there is, in my opinion, this shift that happens. Like, you have to... There's no greater force than complying with the identity we give ourselves. If I say I suck at
SPEAKER_05:math,
SPEAKER_04:I won't study math to prove I suck. If I say I'm an author, there has to be this compliance with that label. So that was the first thing. That happened with my second book. It was called The Pumpkin Plan. The other thing is an author puts their soul, every ounce of their energy, into writing the greatest book ever. they can in that moment and then when the book is out they put their soul into getting the word out relentlessly like a marketing machine i think authors miss that second part some of you missed the first part like oh hey i can write the book for me yeah i can write a really good basic book yeah you can't write a world-changing book but even if an author does that they just sit there and say why isn't everyone running to my door why isn't it selling on its own so I devoted myself to writing something I truly felt was exceptional at the time and then marketing it exceptionally. Those were the two big elements.
SPEAKER_01:That was your innovation, right? Your real innovation was you had experiences like I did that publishers are, they're like, yeah, we'll publish you. But then they did nothing. Yeah, that's true for every publisher. Yeah, yeah. So you were like, well, this is bogus. I'll make a business out of making sure that my People actually know that I wrote a book, right? To the point where, if I understand it correctly, publishers came to you and said, can you run our marketing for
SPEAKER_04:publishing? That's true. Penguin came to me. So I published six books with Penguin Random House. And they came to me and said, we'd like you to come in and teach us how to market. That's awesome. And I did. And they're like, that's not how you market. I'm like, okay. I'm outselling. So my publisher, my contemporaries... Simon Sinek, and we share the same editor. I would run into him at the studio, or at the offices when we used to go there. Seth Godin. Those guys were outselling me because of the quality of the book and the momentum it had. But the other 500 people with the same imprint were underselling me. So I was one of the top 10 in the imprint. And I don't know if that's still the case. And they're like, how are you doing it? I'm like, I'll tell you. That's not how you market. I'm like, okay, well, this is how I market. It was just too guerrilla for them. Yeah,
SPEAKER_05:yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I actually started my own imprint. Tell
SPEAKER_01:the story. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want to hear the story about how... I think it's a great story. There were bookstores that weren't carrying your book, so you sent people... You know the story. You tell it. So
SPEAKER_04:Barnes& Noble specifically wouldn't carry my book. I self-published my very first book, and then Penguin picked me up because of this. So important... In fact, in Running in Parallel was a new author named Gary Vaynerchuk, and he wrote a book, Crush, his first book.
SPEAKER_01:I
SPEAKER_04:wrote The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. I call Barnes and Nobles, found a number, I don't remember how I did, and called them and said, hey, I'd like to have my book at your store. And they said, well, what's the title? I'd say Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. There's like a pause and a laugh. I then say, they go, who's your publisher? I said, I self-publish. There's another pause and laugh. And they said, oh, we're sorry. We wish you the best of luck, but we don't carry self-published authors, and we're Good luck. Click. So I'm like, okay, lesson number one, or 1,000, I don't know. Never take no for an answer, right? So I'm like, okay, that's not the path, but I want to be in Barnes& Noble. So I call my buddies, about 30, 40 guys, so buddies of buddies, two, and say, here's my books. I gave them, you know, 30 books each. I said, every Barnes& Nobles, but I want to hit a region, so the tri-state area, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York. Every Barnes and Nobles, we're going to sneak books into the stores. My one friend, JB, I'll never forget, has his backpack on. I don't know why he wears all black. It's not like we're stealing things,
SPEAKER_01:dude. Unabomber. Yeah,
SPEAKER_04:he's filming himself. He's like, dude, I'm sneaking into Barnes and Nobles. In the middle of the day, there's people going, who the hell is this creepy guy? And he unloads three or four books on the shelf, stacks it. I'm going to Barnes and Nobles. The first one, I'm terrified. I'm like, can I get arrested for giving books?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And by the end of a couple of days, we were in 40 stores. And I'll never forget this. My phone rings, and I look down. This is when we still had phones before Zoom. And caller ID pops up. It says Barnes and Nobles, right? I'm like, what's the chances? My hand's shaking. I answer the phone. I go, yeah, hello. It's the exact same woman I'd spoken to months prior that rejected me. She goes, is this Mr. Michalikovics? I'm like, yeah. She goes, we have a problem. And that's when I really started shaking my head. I said, what's the problem? We're selling your book and it's not properly listed in our inventory. We actually had a situation down at such and such store, the one I put a book in, and the customer was frustrated they can't make the purchase. We got to figure this out. Who's the distributor? And I'm like, What's a distributor? I'm so nervous. I don't even know what they're... She goes, what do you mean? She goes, here's the deal, Mike. We need 3,000 units in the tri-state area tomorrow. And you don't know who your distributor is? I'm going to get you a distributor. We'll have them within an hour. An 18-wheeler next morning appears at my house where I had my books, picks up a skid of books, and one week later, I'm walking in the store, and there it is at Barnes& Noble on the end cap. Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk, Toy Paper Entrepreneur by Mike Michalowicz. I went on to sell thousands and thousands of books to Toy Paper Entrepreneur. And that's when Penguin called me and said,
SPEAKER_01:who are you? We'd
SPEAKER_04:like to publish with
SPEAKER_01:you. Are you the guy? That's amazing. You can tell the truth here. This is truth-telling time. You mentioned earlier in this talk that the store that you put the books in was the one that was calling and saying, we have a problem. Did you go in there? dressed as an angry woman in demand that they sell you that book. Was that you? Are you the one who threw a hissy fit in the middle of the store?
SPEAKER_04:I came in like, this is nonsense. I just came to purchase this book and it's not available? It's in my hand. Where's the manager? Where's the manager? Somebody. Somebody. And that's
SPEAKER_01:how I did it. What is happening on this podcast?
SPEAKER_04:I took lipstick and I smeared it up the side of my face. This is nonsense. And I look in the mirror and I go, you're pretty.
SPEAKER_03:You're pretty. They really like you. That's how I left the store. That's the real technique. Yeah, that's exactly what happened. They really like you.
SPEAKER_01:You told me that every great book. I'm just putting my lipstick on. Every great business book has a single idea. It's in the title, and every chapter is that idea said differently. Yes. And I think that is absolutely brilliant. No one had ever said that to me before. It's
SPEAKER_04:so effing hard to do, too.
SPEAKER_01:I know. But just think of the best-selling business book, Good to Great. Good to Great. That's the title. Every chapter is how to become good to great.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, good to great. Start with why. The power of
SPEAKER_01:habit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So Good to Great is more of the aspirational title, which is amazing. Start with why. is the actionable aspirational title i start with wise is the instruction set i want to know why purpose you you know simon wanted the book title to be the golden circle and he was fighting adrian the publisher agent zach hines like this is it will weiser he was the uh marketing director at portfolio at the time penguin came and said this is not gonna be the title they said your title start with y Penguin gave that to him on a golden platter. I wonder if it was the Golden Circle, if that book would have done as well. I
SPEAKER_01:have a bad feeling about the Golden Circle. I'm not sure why.
SPEAKER_04:It
SPEAKER_03:sounds like a fraternity thing, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, congratulations. You're now a member. I don't feel good about myself. Did you remember Simon doing that at MIT for us? Totally.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, before, like before the book? Before the book, like three, four years before the book. Nice. He did the whole, what was it, Puget Sound talk, TED talk in front of our, you know, the three circles. And the lesson was, and for all you aspiring writers out there, Simon is an excellent speaker. He's an ad guy. He's a creative director. He had practiced that technique. you know, these little Ted talk for years and years and years. So that when he got up and did it, and that's his magic trick. I interviewed a guy who's a Broadway producer and he said, every great speaker has a magic trick. And the trick is to make it so easy that you can go home and do that trick. And he used Simon Sinek's golden circle as an example, because everybody that saw it went back to their office and said, I want to show you something. Yeah. That was the magic trick. And I remember like it was yesterday when we saw him do that three years before the book came out, I think.
SPEAKER_04:I said, I came back to our office and I said to my team, I'd like you to meet my golden circle. I got slapped.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's why you went to prison, but we're not going to talk about that in this podcast. That's a different podcast.
SPEAKER_03:That's a
SPEAKER_02:different one. I'm curious, Mike, you said something I think is really interesting and it's got me thinking. So if you had all the money in the world and if you have no money, If they point to the same thing, then that's your calling. Do you still have the same calling? Can your calling change?
SPEAKER_04:I don't think so. I don't know if I'll show you guys. I have it on. I'm so into calling. Let's see if it cuts over. See that right there? Oh, it's zoomed in too much. It says eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. So I got to zoom out. But that's my life's purpose is to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty.
SPEAKER_01:Can I get a loan?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think we can start this eradication project right now. Right now, buddy.
SPEAKER_04:I think our calling doesn't change. I think there's this unquenchable thirst we have for something. And I think it's trying to resolve something from our past. Sometimes trauma, sometimes a childhood dream or something. But it's something I can't resolve for me. And therefore, I must stay on this quest. So I believe what we teach is actually what we need to learn. This mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty is all the struggles of entrepreneurship.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Sacrificing family, not having money, soulful draining. And so I'm just trying to resolve that for me. So I think once you have a calling, I don't think it ever goes away.
SPEAKER_01:Is that ghost still chasing you, Mike, or do you feel like you're past it?
SPEAKER_04:No, it still chases me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. How does that look when it's a positive impact in your life versus tell me how it's negative?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Negative is this perfection syndrome, and then joke my way out of it because I'm uncomfortable, but it's a perfection syndrome. However, the positive thing is this relentless energy. People are like, why do you have so much energy? Because I feel desperate, honestly, to serve folks, myself, but to serve folks. I just did, this is a big reveal, but I have a television show. I just got signed up to host. We just filmed six episodes.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, congratulations. You were working on something like that 10 years ago and it didn't go, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And the big thing was I finally said, you know what? If I seek this, it's not for me. It's got to present itself. And sure enough, a major company reached out and said, we want you to host a TV show.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, thanks. I can't reveal any more about it because it's releasing in July.
SPEAKER_01:Everybody wants to know. Go
SPEAKER_04:out. At your wedding, I'll be like, I got to tell you this story. It's not about what I can see. I'm
SPEAKER_01:out. My TV show. I thought you stopped drinking. What's happening? Well, at
SPEAKER_04:your wedding, I'm going to get drunk and vomit. I did stop drinking, except for that
SPEAKER_01:wedding. Except at
SPEAKER_04:weddings. Be ready. I'm going to wear a wedding dress. I'm going to be smearing the lipstick on.
SPEAKER_01:This is probably a good time to tell everyone that Mike is the flower girl at my wedding.
SPEAKER_04:I know. I'm excited, too. Tina invited me to be the flower girl, and I've been practicing throwing rose petals.
SPEAKER_01:Mike is, John, I think you know this, but Mike, I'm getting married in a month. ish and mike is the one that introduced me to tina
SPEAKER_02:oh so i did not know that yeah i did not know so mike go back to go back to mike's question yeah something more interesting yeah no no the lipstick thing is just amazing yeah we got let's talk we're thinking a demonstration of that i mean more than you're acting but besides that like what you were sort of saying it doesn't it doesn't bother you too much or you never get bothered by it. Like I'm imagining so many entrepreneurs, easy for me to say, just kind of bugging you in a way, like kind of constantly bugging you. But does that not, does that just continue to fill your cup or does your cup ever run over to the point where it's just like, okay, I had enough. I'm going to do this. I mean, the positive and negatives, you were kind of going down that
SPEAKER_04:path. So the negative is perfectionism. So the expression is perfectionism. Do it again. Do it right. Do it again. Which becomes workaholism, which is not good. And I don't enjoy it. But I can see how you fall into that. The flip side is this relentless source of energy. Now, I do... It's funny. In GOT, they're like, oh, how many people have ADD? You know, 90% of the room.
SPEAKER_01:Everyone's like, what? I wasn't paying attention. What
SPEAKER_04:are you
SPEAKER_01:asking?
SPEAKER_04:Exactly. I've been diagnosed with hypomania, which is one degree less than hypermania. So that's part of it. But the expression of it is, I ain't going to stop until it's done. So with the TV show, the producers came up and said, wow, that was three episodes over eight hours, and your energy is higher. And on stage, I'll be that way. But the source of it, I really feel, is this need to resolve the ghost.
SPEAKER_01:And
SPEAKER_04:I'm not going to stop. To persuade others, I don't know any other way than being more positive about them than they are about themselves.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I wrote about you in Plan D. It wasn't the ghost chapter, but- Oh, is that the one you
SPEAKER_04:cut, that section you cut?
SPEAKER_01:No, actually it was about frameworks, but I digress. The ghost, you mentioned the ghost. I've never met a successful person, uber successful, that is neither chasing a ghost or being chased by one. The question is who's got who, which is where that question came from. Because people that understand what drives them and why they get up in the morning, what they're trying to fix or please or whatever, they actually, they have it. They're chasing the ghost. They're like, okay, I know I've got this about me, so I'm going to do A, B, and C, and here are my metrics. I'm going to kick its ass and blah, blah, blah. Some people never realize it, and they're just jerks. Like they're manic, they're not good parents, they're not good bosses. And it feels like you had a moment where you're like, okay, I see what's happening here. So this is what I'm gonna do. I mean, was it
SPEAKER_02:the rock bottom moment for you? Was that the real kick?
SPEAKER_04:That was the reset. Reset. Was that, what's his name? Steve Jobs who said like, you only see the dots after or in retrospect or something. It took me a couple of years to look back. So there was the gutting. So there's like 2007, top of the world, dick. 2008, the gutting. By 2010, I'm looking back and saying, oh, that's the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It starts this reset. And then there was this loss, this not loss, but the desire for income and money became insignificant compared to the desire for impact and service. Still significant in sustainability, but not like that was my primary motivator. And so it's like, oh, this is cool now, man. And I don't know, it felt so much more fluid. But it took that retrospect. It took me years to look at it.
SPEAKER_01:That must have been hard on your family. Was that hard on the people around you? Yeah. How did they get through that? It's
SPEAKER_04:funny. So I wrote a new book recently.
SPEAKER_01:Shocker.
SPEAKER_04:Shocker, I know.
SPEAKER_01:This is number 19, if you're keeping track.
SPEAKER_04:Right, right. Nine published, 19 written. And I sat down with my wife. And when we hit rock bottom financially at home, like it was done. I looked that year, I made$9,000. I looked at my social security thing. That's my total income when I had zero left. And I had$300,000 of credit card and other kinds of debt. My wife, she grew up with severe abuse. It's a horrible story, but severe abuse in her family stuff. And we were just talking a few weeks ago. She goes, you know what? When we were in that moment, she's like, I at least knew what to do. She's like, she goes, it was shitty, but I knew exactly what I needed to do. Because she lived through it. She knew what financial rock bottom and worse is. So it was this weird disconnect. I remember her saying to me, too, like, Mike, you're just a constant dark cloud. I wasn't even trying to joke back then. That's
SPEAKER_01:hard to believe, knowing you, that you must have been carrying a lot, like the weight.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah, it was really difficult. I cherish it now because I think it brings empathy and humanity to me. It's the de-dicking.
SPEAKER_01:And just to be, for folks who are listening to this, who might be going, wow, stop asking these questions. I've seen you talk about this openly. It's kind of your gift to the world now that you went through it. And there's nothing... worse for me to listen to than someone who doesn't understand how lucky they've been and believe that they're just the smartest person in the world. And you know what? Everybody who's successful, luck was on their side. They had to be a little bit lucky. And the best leaders, in my opinion, are the ones who can say, either I got really lucky or I didn't, and here's what I learned from it. They have empathy. They went through something where they're sharing You know, what they learned going through the hard times, not just talking about how rich they are, how much, you know, how successful or how smart.
SPEAKER_04:Boring.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Disingenuous, I would say. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:The three of us. I don't mean this facetiously. We're all lottery winners. Look, it's three white guys, middle age. That's not coincidence. We are lottery winners. Someone asked me, you ever win the lottery? I'm like, yeah, I was born in the United States, Northeast, white, in the 70s. You can't get a bigger lottery win than that. We are given such an advantage.
SPEAKER_01:Plus the trust fund baby thing. You should probably mention that.
SPEAKER_04:It's true. I think with that comes great responsibility. In the human race, running race, I'm saying, we were put you know, 20 steps before the starting line where everyone else is back there. And so to win ain't so freaking hard, even though it feels that way because you're still running.
SPEAKER_00:But
SPEAKER_04:we have a great responsibility. If you're going to cross that finish line, you better be noble and caring. I actually, you know that the BHAG, that Jim Collins, big, hairy, audacious goal? I translated that to say that that isn't right, in my opinion. It should be the big bang, which is big, beautiful, beautiful, meaning of beauty to yourself, audacious, noble. Like where's the nobility in what we do? So big, beautiful, audacious, noble goal is I think what we need.
SPEAKER_01:That feels evolved. Who in your life were your role models or your mentors that like some people that you learned lessons from watching? I mean, we've been talking a lot about you stubbing your toe, but did anybody else around you uh go through stuff that you or teach you stuff that you carry with you today
SPEAKER_04:yeah extraordinary parents i'm very lucky
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_04:a mom that raised my sister myself was at home all the time that dude that's a big freaking deal like to come home from school and you got your apple snacks there um i don't take that lightly there was love at all times and then you know what you receive you reciprocate back out so i feel i love on not just my family but the people that i have the privilege to serve But in the business aspect, there's this guy, Frank. He was my first business coach before business coaches existed. I remember him saying to me, I asked him, and he's, of course, Italian from New Jersey because everyone is.
SPEAKER_01:Because he's going to sound better when you do his voice.
SPEAKER_04:I'll do it. I'm building toward the impersonation. And I asked him, I had a customer challenge. I said, what's the fix? He goes, I'll give you the fix, Michael. But before I do, I want to tell you, don't listen to my advice. And I said, why? He goes, because I'm not your customer. I'll tell you what I think, but it probably ain't right. And he just had this really observant way of giving me direction that's like, oh, of course. You know, everyone, a lot of people like to be the expert in the room when their title is expert or coach or whatever. And we're not. And he was the first guy to say, no, this is the way it is. And folks like him, John Jantz, I don't know if you know him. I know John. He pulled me aside once we did a keynote together. I was just building my career. He pulls me aside and he goes, Michael, you know, there's something you got to do. Wait
SPEAKER_03:a minute. Is it the same guy? I do one accent. Someday, and this day may never come. My name is John Jansen. You know what you got to do? Rob Oil and Mike Maddock. He loves
SPEAKER_04:that. I
SPEAKER_03:do
SPEAKER_04:love that. He said that. He goes, oh, you need to build a community. And how you do it is by making a membership organization. He coached me through an organization he made, Duct Tape Marketing. He said, do this. And so I made Profit First Professionals. And that became this really big, very healthy organization. And it has a global presence now. It's amazing. I was actually just talking to someone in Australia before this, and they're talking about how our organization down there has been of service. It's unbelievable. So there's John Jans. But most of it is these fleeting moments where it's one word or one quote that just hits and it's like, oh, even though I may have heard that flavor a thousand times, that was the one that was the thread that finally got pulled, and I see it now.
SPEAKER_02:Plus, you took action on it, too. You made it real. So we're talking almost a little bit of historical piece for your career and kind of the trajectory that you've been on and the journey you've been on. But I'm curious, and maybe not a negative piece, but a time, let's say, where you really needed to make a tough decision. And you know that this podcast is called Your Seat at the Table. And I'm curious, like, As you had to make that decision, who did you put at your table? Who did you get advice from? Who did you lean on? And how did you go about making that really tough decision? It's one of the things that Mike and I want to continue to explore, really, with all the different leaders and folks that we have on here, is how did they come up with the pattern to make that decision? Is there anything that you would distill down to, This is how I went about it. This is the people that I put around, surrounded myself. Or did you just get some inspiration, you know, like one of those quotes?
SPEAKER_04:The one that comes to mind was probably my most, one of my most difficult days in business. So I had a business, I won't say what it was, but it had 30 employees or so. And my partner in the business was managing the numbers and was not managing the numbers. And we came to this precipice moment where we couldn't make payroll and the business was in real trouble. I spoke to the accountant. He's like, I don't know what's going on, but you got to clean up. So the decision came to lay off half our staff. And my colleague decided to leave for a trip that he was planning and said, no, this is something you can just handle on your own. And so, which is actually, I was spiteful, upset about that, but Then also I'm grateful because he shouldn't have been there. The mentor was my accountant and saying, this is the reality. And he said, someone said somewhere, and you all have heard this. If you keep this going, the whole boat's going to sink. If you let people off now, they can pursue what their passion is. And you're actually saving them because they're not going to have a job in a few weeks anyway. And everyone else, you have a chance to save. I sobbed. Before, during, and after that, I called a company meeting, 30 people in the room, and said, this is not your fault. This is mine. The numbers are bad. And it has been mismanaged by me. And I take full responsibility. And now I have to make a decision that's crushing me. I need to let people go. I called person after person in, and they were crying and scared because we had such a fun business that seemed to be growing so well. And it was growing, but it wasn't profitable. And fired him. And by the end of the day, I was exhausted. And not a single person got angry. Everyone understood. And everyone left. And then I called in the rest of the people. I said, I think it was 15 people left. I said, where are the last people that are remaining? And we're going to turn this company around. I said, I have one final ask. And this is the greatest mistake I ever made. I said, I'm cutting my salary completely. But I need everyone here to take a 10% salary cut. until we can recover, because it's the only thing left to keep us going. Well, here's why that's a mistake. I just let go of all these people, and I go to the last people that have to double their work, there's 30 gone, I mean, there's 30 total now, it's down to 15, and saying, double up your effort and take less money. Secondly, I just said, I did everything to stabilize this company, and then told them to their face, I didn't stabilize the company, you've got to take a salary cut. Those people started looking for jobs, and I would have too, like, why am I staying here? What I should have done, I never made that mistake in the beginning, but once I caught the mistake, I should have let two extra people go and told everyone else that's left,
SPEAKER_00:you're
SPEAKER_04:unaffected compensation-wise, or you can give them a little raise and say, I'm gonna ask ridiculous things of you right now. Here's the greatest irony.
SPEAKER_00:A
SPEAKER_04:week later, we landed a major, major opportunity, and it carried the company forward for another three years, or two years, into after we were acquired and so forth. And no one had to take a salary cut, but that sting left forever.
SPEAKER_01:What did you do with your partner who was on the trip? That's what I wanna know. What happened to that guy or girl?
SPEAKER_04:Well, he did not participate in those conversations whatsoever. And he, in my opinion, just looked the other way. And he's the kind of guy he can never lose.
SPEAKER_01:Where's the body, Mike? Where did you bury the body? Come on. Okay.
SPEAKER_04:So the body is in Madison Park, New Jersey. Okay. Yeah, no, he's the type of guy that looks the other way. And I think that's his cross to bear, is he can't take responsibility for challenges, only for wins. And I wish him the best.
SPEAKER_01:I had the same exact experience, including the crying and weeping. It was the most horrible day of my business career. And I went to my partner at the time and said, this isn't equitable. I am suffering and you are not. And I said, listen, here's what's going to happen. You're buying the art or I'm buying you out. Here's what I will offer you and I will take it right now. I will take that money, but this isn't fair. And he said, you're right. And he took it.
SPEAKER_04:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:So, but it was the same exact thing. It was like a wake up call for me. Like, oh my gosh, why am I the only one here that is suffering through this? I did it. It was my fault, but I just did, you know, like what's partnership about if you can't suffer and rejoice together? That's how it is.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly. Yeah. It was a devastating period. It's funny. I'm in contact. This is the interesting part. I'm in contact with some of those people. This goes back. 20 years now. And one of them was our in-house counsel attorney. I literally spoke with her this morning. And she went on to pursue her passion, which was to become a judge. She wanted to become a judge. And weeks later, she became a judge. Another person wanted to navigate the world by sailboat, Carol. And she left and did that. One guy, Shaq, he was a rock star, wanted to devote his life to forensics, he'd found out his passion, and sure enough, that's what he stepped into. So it was just really cool to see people move down the paths they wanted to move. And I wonder, in retrospect, if I somehow stitched it together for one more week, one more month, and just got by, if I would actually compromise these people's, these individuals' opportunities in life.
SPEAKER_01:That's a great, you know, and you're, it's a great bridge to i think your seminal work to date and i bet you like authors are like no i'm just getting started i've got it like you know you write something i won't you write this best-selling book and then it's like where's my next best-selling
SPEAKER_04:book i
SPEAKER_01:know where's my next oscar
SPEAKER_04:where's my next grammy i call it the hotel california syndrome like once you write the song you better perform to every concert and you better write better songs and it's
SPEAKER_01:really well most people never write one you know but it's really hard you're i think profit first is An excellent example of how that story you just told is manifest in a simple idea that, you know, most entrepreneurs do exactly what you do. said i cut i'm not even going to take a check everybody else you come first meanwhile you're suffering you're looking for a job because you're not paying yourself what am i doing to myself it and and your whole the whole thesis is no pay yourself first and then with what's left over run a company it's it is such a simple and profoundly um incredibly powerful idea yeah and i i don't want to i probably just did steal your thunder but i think it's and it was you just saw where it was born out of your own experience. Like, what am I doing here?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I don't think there's any new ideas on the planet, but there's new applications of really good ideas. So the envelope system, the pay yourself first principle has been around forever, but it's all been personal finance. I'm like, this has to be business finance. I think the most important thing authors can do, to your point, is pick to devote themselves to the one thing, but if they've lived through it, It transforms the book. I could talk to it, I think, on a theoretical or logical or educational basis. But once you've lived through it, there's an emotional connection. I just want to share with the rise of AI. AI can write a book that teaches profit first or anything I do or any other author because it's an amalgamation of what's already out there. But what it can't do is put the human emotion in it. It just can't figure that out. But I observed it. A little history lesson. 1888 was the first public use of a camera. And at that point, if you were a portrait painter, you were paid extraordinary amounts of money for the more accurate of a painting you could make until 1889, where cameras were better than painters and you had to become an abstract artist to sell. Abstract artists have made the most revenue, had the greatest impact in the world. Da Vinci's of the world and so forth. Not Da Vinci, but... Yeah, DaVinci.
SPEAKER_01:Monet. Monet. Let's go Monet. Let's go to impressions. Monet. It
SPEAKER_04:wasn't DaVinci. Monet. And what's happening in the author space now is the rise of the abstract. What can we do that brings this human element, this connection we never saw before, but it's so crystal clear when we see it? I think authorship is going to be elevated because of AI. It's definitely going to vet people out from writing scripts to writing... soul-shifting books
SPEAKER_00:yeah i love it
SPEAKER_02:that's awesome i think that's inspiring honestly i think a lot of people would would be very inspired to hear that
SPEAKER_04:yeah i have a conference coming up in a couple days about ai um and how it's affecting authorship and um is it the demise or is it the rise i i'm on the rise side no surprise yeah that's the rhymes i do not denies i'm on the surprise rise
SPEAKER_01:I'm not going to be impressed until you can rhyme some kind of oiled up callback for the third time. So what's next for you, Mike? I mean, you said you have another book. Apparently I
SPEAKER_04:submitted it last night for what's called substantive edits round two. And, um, It's with my publisher.
SPEAKER_01:Does it pull you or do you chase it? Is it an idea that's so exciting to you that you're like, oh, I got to finish this? Or just like, oh my God, I got to grind this out?
SPEAKER_04:For me, it's a labor of love. I'm not a good, efficient writer, but I got to do this. I need to master it for myself. I'm good to great at it. I got to master it. Perfectionism. I got to serve it to other people. So the new book's called The Money Habit. It's my first... dip in the toe of the water of personal finance. What I found is entrepreneurs that use profit first in their business and do well, but don't figure it out at home, the home leeches off the business, or vice versa. There's this duality. So this book is How You Nail the Numbers at Home, and it's going to stretch beyond entrepreneurs. It's going to be for the employees of companies. It's going to be for any of us who earn an income but struggle with money.
SPEAKER_01:So are you going to become one of those like radio hosts that starts out being really nice and telling sweet stories in like 10 years? And I'm like, okay, how many times do I have to tell you? You put the money in the bank. Two things are going to happen. You're going out of business or you're going out of business. Which is it? Which do you want to do?
SPEAKER_04:You're going to be my first interview. I'll be like, Mike, I went over your finances. Everything's on oil. You buy so much damn body oil. That's the callback.
SPEAKER_01:And the callback. That's the callback. You did it. You did it. Yeah. And with that. Well
SPEAKER_02:played.
SPEAKER_01:Mike, I love you. Thanks for spending some time with us. I
SPEAKER_04:love you, Mike. John, this has been a joy. Thanks for your professionalism. Mike, you've made me uncomfortable the whole time.
SPEAKER_01:With the questions, the penetrating questions. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But, dude, I do love you. I love your story. I've been working on a little speech for your upcoming wedding. I think I got something fun.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. I'm
SPEAKER_02:supposed to do one of those, too. Yeah, you guys are
SPEAKER_01:both speaking at the wedding. How many people are going to speak at your wedding? 73, but it's a real honor. The wedding
SPEAKER_04:starts at 5 a.m.
SPEAKER_03:I have a 5 a.m. slot. Ching,
SPEAKER_04:ching,
SPEAKER_03:ching, ching.
SPEAKER_04:Good morning. Is anyone here yet? Mike Maddock, he's my best friend. Oh, you too? You too? You too? Okay. Thanks.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, God. I remember walking in the woods and suddenly. All right, Mike, congratulations on all your success. It's an honor to be your buddy. And I can't wait to see you on TV, I guess. I'm clearly going to be a guest. Excited for your show. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I'll
SPEAKER_04:send it over in July when it comes out. Guys, thanks for this. I can't wait to see both of you up in Boston in a couple weeks almost.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we'll see you soon. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Mike. Cheers to you. See you,
SPEAKER_04:brothers.
