012 Redefining Success: Brad Costanzo's Transformation from Financial Advisor to Marketing Savant

Welcome to the Paid to Create Podcast. In this episode, we invited serial entrepreneur, CEO, and founder Brad Costanzo to share with us his remarkable journey from financial advisor to highly-sought business consultant. 

Hear firsthand how Brad turned a financial crisis into an opportunity, catapulting him from corporate America to the wild world of entrepreneurship.

Marvel at Brad's audacious foray into the world of online business, where he created and sold a non-existent product, demonstrating innovation, risk-taking, and a knack for turning the improbable into reality. Discover his intriguing journey of transforming an idea - teaching magic tricks to impress women - into a flourishing enterprise, sparked by a page from Neil Strauss's bestseller, "The Game."

Brad also unravels the value of viewing one's career as an independent venture, emphasizing the boundless potential this mindset offers. As we dive deep into the misconceptions of overnight success, the episode shines a light on the nuanced challenges and triumphs inherent in the entrepreneurial journey.

We explore the intricate dance of optimism and criticism and the critical role of feedback in the world of startups. Learn about the unique productivity systems, the role of AI in future businesses, and the power of staying present to achieve success.

This episode is not just about Brad's story; it is about you and your journey. Regardless of whether you're a veteran entrepreneur or a newcomer, the insights and advice contained in this episode promise to equip you with valuable knowledge to embark on your entrepreneurial adventure.

Tune into this engaging episode of "Paid To Create," as Brad Costanzo, armed with a wealth of knowledge and experience, helps you unlock the secrets of your entrepreneurial path. Remember, the road to success may be winding, but with the right guidance, it's within your grasp.

Don't miss out on this remarkable opportunity to learn from a master of the trade. Click to listen now, because your journey to entrepreneurial greatness is just a play button away!

Transcript

Brad Costanzo: Let's start a course teaching the pickup artist community, which is growing because of Neil Strauss's book. And I Googled "pickup artist magic tricks," and nothing existed. Taking Tim's advice, I created a sales page for a product that didn't exist, pre-sold it through $600 at Google AdWords, and started to build a list. I was like, "Crap, we've got something here."

Sarah Jenkins: Welcome to the Paid to Create podcast, where we dig into the secret strategies of successful creators making a lucrative living. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

AJ Roberts: I just have to tell you about Kartra, the marketing platform [00:00:30] that has seriously transformed my business. You know how running a business can be insanely time-consuming, right? Well, Kartra has been a game changer for me. It's honestly like having an entire marketing team in my pocket. And what I love most is that it automates all the tedious daily tasks for me, from marketing to sales to even customer experience. I can't believe how much time and energy I've saved since I started using it.

And get this. With Kartra, I can create websites, funnels, courses, membership sites, email campaigns, calendars, surveys, [00:01:00] you name it. It's made managing my business so much simpler and more affordable. Honestly, I can't recommend Kartra enough. If you're curious, head to paidtocreatepodcast.com/kartra to start your trial. Trust me, you won't regret it.

Welcome, everybody, to the Paid to Create podcast. I'm AJ Roberts. Alongside me always is Sarah Jenkins, and our guest today is Brad Costanzo.

Brad Costanzo: Great to have you.

AJ Roberts: Glad you're here, Brad. Brad's the founder of Costanzo Marketing Group, Costanzo Capital, and my favorite is the host of Bacon Wrapped Business podcast, [00:01:30] where he uncovers what's working now with some of the top business experts in the world. I've been a guest. It's been a pleasure and glad to have you on our podcast today.

Brad Costanzo: Good to be here.

AJ Roberts: Yeah, man.

Brad Costanzo: Thanks for having me, guys.

AJ Roberts: So your journey's interesting. You started out in the financial advisory world and ventured into info marketing. Maybe you can share that journey, because I think for a lot of people, the transition is the big part, like when you realize, "I'm not cut out for employment," right? "I'm going to go do my own thing.

Brad Costanzo: Absolutely. So yeah, I was a financial advisor with Prudential Securities for several years, and then kind [00:02:00] of migrated over into financial analyst and consultant at the company. So I was working with financial advisors, helping them grow their business internally, just through the various tools. Very corporate.

And then in 2008, 2007, the great financial crisis started to rear its head and it was like, "Wow, I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep up in this industry," because I was a very bonus and commission-based as well. So it just so happened that the month that I got laid off, so I had a transition forced on me, which was good because it was going to be hard to just [00:02:30] switch over to this, but I had read The 4-Hour Workweek the same month that I got laid off.

I was in a neuro-linguistic programming workshop class for... It was a yearlong program, and every month, we'd go there. So several of the classmates, we became good friends and we all read the book together and we're like, "Okay, let's create a mastermind. Let's brainstorm about this. Let's create an online business." And none of us had any idea what to do. But then so we created two businesses, or at least I got involved with two business out of that. Two partners [00:03:00] and I started a software company called Pigtones, which stood for Politically Incorrect GPS Tones.

Sarah Jenkins: Oh no.

Brad Costanzo: So at the time, we figured out how to hack into Garmin and TomTom's machines and changed the voices on there. So we hired a guy on freelancer.com or whatever to figure out how to do this, and he goes, "Yeah, this is all you have to do is reread these words, et cetera, and then here's how it compiles them back together." So then we got [00:03:30] really drunk and high one day around Dale's kitchen table, and we came up with ideas for Politically Incorrect GPS Tones.

Sarah Jenkins: It's not a family show, it's fine.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. But it was... What do you call them? It was everything from celebrity impersonated voices to characters. So we had every... I mean, we would've been canceled today because we took every racial stereotype and went off the rails. But everybody was-

Sarah Jenkins: [00:04:00] Did you do Morgan Freeman?

Brad Costanzo: We did have a Morgan Freeman. Yeah.

AJ Roberts: Of course.

Brad Costanzo: And we had Stewie-

Sarah Jenkins: We had Morgan Freeman.

Brad Costanzo: ... from the Family Guy. We had all these other things. But then we had a guy with a really thick Mexican accent called Wrong Juan.

Sarah Jenkins: Oh no.

Brad Costanzo: He was my favorite though because he was hilarious. And it wasn't actually racist stuff, but it was just the accent stereotypes. But it was instead of going down the street and if you make a wrong turn, the old Garmin would say, "Recalculating," so this one would say, "Yo, homes, you must had too [00:04:30] much tequila, because you're lost."

Sarah Jenkins: Nice.

Brad Costanzo: "Now I've got to get the map back out again." So it was just fun, right? So we did that. Now, I mainly funded that and did ideas. My other partners ran it.

The other one that I did with my friend, Teevee, we had also read Neil Strauss's book The Game, right? By Neil Strauss. And in that book, they talked about using magic tricks to pick up girls, but they never taught the magic tricks.

Sarah Jenkins: I like magic tricks.

Brad Costanzo: Good. Well, I knew a handful of bar tricks at the time, and it just so happened... I was [00:05:00] never part of the pickup artist community or whatever, but I just happened to know about a dozen bar tricks, not cards or whatever. And when I was single and I did them with girls when I was flirting, it did tend to work. So I remember when I was reading the book, I was like, "I'll be damned. I used to kind of do that too."

So my buddy, Teevee, and I were like, "What info product do we do?" I don't know. Here, I was 32 years old, financial advisor. I'm like, "I'm out of work now. Let's start a course teaching the pickup artist community..." [00:05:30] which is growing because of Neil Strauss's book, right? So we tapped into this slipstream of people who are reading the book, New York Times bestselling author, and I Googled "pickup artist magic tricks," and nothing existed. So we looked at each other and I was like, "Maybe we should do that."

So taking Tim's advice, I created a sales page for a product that didn't exist, and I just pre-sold it through $600 at Google AdWords on pickup artist magic and started to build a list. I was like, "Crap, we've got something here." So now let's create it, started off [00:06:00] as an ebook, and then standing in front of my fireplace with a flip camera, and it was-

Sarah Jenkins: Definitely.

Brad Costanzo: Right? The flip camera, remember that?

Sarah Jenkins: Yes.

Brad Costanzo: And I remember saying, "All right, guys, so imagine I'm in a bar and imagine I'm talking to a girl. And now imagine the girl says this and I'm saying that, and then I do this. I'm going to show you the trick. Blah, blah, blah. And here's what I would say after." So I'd do the trick and it'd be kind of cool. And then I'd say, "Now I'm going to show you how to do it." [00:06:30] But the entire thing was, "Imagine that I've got-

AJ Roberts: Yeah. Well, I mean-

Brad Costanzo: ... beautiful women-

AJ Roberts: ... they were imagining having a girlfriend. They were already in an imaginary world. They're going to go out and do these tricks. Yeah, right.

Brad Costanzo: Exactly. So I compiled this thing. It was the most ghetto-looking info product ever, but I remember June 2nd, 2008, had our first sale, Sebastian Rottier out of France. Remember my first online sale, right?

AJ Roberts: International.

Sarah Jenkins: Wow.

Brad Costanzo: International. I called my mom, "Mom, I'm multinational." And at the time, I didn't have a job, so I had a little bit of a severance and I had some savings, so I was just living [00:07:00] on that. Probably took six months before I pulled $1,500 out of the business.

Sarah Jenkins: Hey, you pulled four-hour workweek on purpose.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. You know what was interesting, I... Four-hour workweek has inspired a lot of people, but it also gets a bad rap from a lot of people saying, "It's bull crap. Nobody works four hours a week." I never read the book. When I read the book, it inspired me more than any other book, but it was never, "How can I only work four hours a week?" or, "How can I get rich on the internet?" Mine was, "How do I never put my resume together and have to go schlepp around and get somebody else to bless me as worthy of a paycheck?"

[00:07:30] So what that allowed me to do is it allowed me to... My wins were... Okay, I wrote my first sales copy. I created my first sales page in WordPress using HTML. Holy crap, that was hard. Things Kartra exist, right? And I created my first opt-in. I got my first sale. All of those little micro milestones were my big wins, and I would celebrate these wins. So that allowed me to keep going because it was win after win. I wasn't focused on the prize, I was focused [00:08:00] on the process.

And then so grew both of those businesses. Unfortunately, Pigtones, we had a fun little ride-

Sarah Jenkins: Did you get caught?

Brad Costanzo: We had so many cease and desists.

AJ Roberts: I was going to say interesting thing with Pigtones, it was kind of a blessing that it didn't work because Garmin and TomTom didn't work, right?

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. Because of iPhone.

AJ Roberts: The iPhone came along and just crushed it.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah.

AJ Roberts: So it's like you said, on one side, you've got a trend that's growing, thanks to Neil Strauss, and obviously, Frank Kern brought it to the online marketing world.

Brad Costanzo: Totally.

AJ Roberts: "Hey, everybody should read this [00:08:30] book." And then on-

Sarah Jenkins: We all did.

AJ Roberts: ... the flip side of that, you've got a system that was... What is those? Blu-ray DVDs, essentially, right? They were the same thing.

Brad Costanzo: This was 2008, right? So iPhone, I think, had come out in maybe 2006 or whatever, and I remember it was maybe a year later, I wasn't even using my Garmin, I was using my iPhone. I was like, "This isn't good." And we got so many cease and desist orders from Time Warner and all these people because we were impersonating-

AJ Roberts: Voices.

Brad Costanzo: ... celebrity voices. So that ended up just kind of fizzling out. And the other business did actually fairly [00:09:00] well for what it was. And this was my first online product. My best year was half a million. And then it started to fizzle and I sold it. Now, I was the face of the product, although fortunately, I used a pen name and-

Sarah Jenkins: Nice.

Brad Costanzo: ... I was able to sell it to this couple of investors out of Australia.

AJ Roberts: What was your pen name?

Brad Costanzo: Brad Jackson.

Sarah Jenkins: I was going to ask too.

Brad Costanzo: So it was just Brad Jackson, and-

AJ Roberts: Someone's going to write it and be like, "That's who I learned my magic tricks from."

Brad Costanzo: Funny enough. So-

Sarah Jenkins: I was hoping it was wildly inappropriate, but it's not.

Brad Costanzo: Well, and funny enough, so I [00:09:30] sold that business in 2012, and within a year, it was completely... They ran it into the ground. But that was actually a fun win to know that I took an info product that I created with my face on it, et cetera, but I was able to actually sell that. Now, I didn't get rich off it. It wasn't retirement money, but that was fun. That was the end of 2012.

A couple months ago, I was at a conference in Vegas, Perry's conference, and I got a guy come up to me from Asia. He's like, "Puma skills? [00:10:00] Brad Jackson?" He goes, "Oh my God, I was one of your customers and I did all this other stuff and I had a dating product over in Asia, but you were a big inspiration." I was like, "Holy crap." And it just so happened that-

AJ Roberts: So you're huge in Asia is what you're saying.

Brad Costanzo: Huge in Asia. Not too hard. Also it was funny, my wife is Brazilian and we were in Brazil back in, I don't know, 2010 or '11, and I sent an email to my list saying, "Hey, I'm down here in Recife, Brazil and I'm doing XYZ, but I don't know, go buy this affiliate product." [00:10:30] And some guy writes me back, this guy Gutto writes me back. He goes, "Hey Brad, I'm in Recife too. You're in my hometown. I'm a musician at this bar. I'd love to show you around." And I looked him up on Facebook. He looked totally normal.

AJ Roberts: Not a murderer.

Brad Costanzo: I was like, "Yeah." Exactly, I was like, "Yeah."

Sarah Jenkins: Not weird at all.

Brad Costanzo: I was like, "Yeah-

AJ Roberts: Got more than four friends.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. He goes, "Come hang out." So he came and picked me up, and we got in the car with my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, and she's in the back, I'm in the front with Gutto, and we're pulling out and he goes, "Man, I can't believe I'm hanging out with Brad Jackson." So I looked back [00:11:00] at my wife, I'm in her home country and her eyes are rolling to the back of her head. I'm never going to hear the end of this. That was 10, 13 years ago, and I'm still talking about it.

AJ Roberts: Yeah, you're their 007, man. You're their 007.

Brad Costanzo: So anyway, that was kind of how I got started in that space, just jumping in and using it as a marketing laboratory. That's the advice I give to anybody kind of new to creating or online marketing is don't go for the win, just go for... It's a laboratory. [00:11:30] Just learn. If you can earn, that's awesome. But if you can learn, that's really the first step. That's where I have to remind myself when I start new things today, I have to get back into that beginner's mindset of just how can I learn something.

But yeah, then the other part of the story is that over the past 10 years, I've been consulting. I've had some startups, some have worked, some have failed, but I've been consulting and investing, and that's what brings me to today.

AJ Roberts: Yeah, it's quite a lot. It's really interesting, [00:12:00] like you mentioned going through that whole process of building something, selling something. What made you not necessarily want to do that again, but help others on that journey?

Brad Costanzo: So I realized how much effort it takes. Unlike what everybody says, it's not the easy money, right? It's easy money to convince people that it's easy money, but there's a lot of work.

AJ Roberts: Well, I like when they say laptop lifestyle, and then they show them on the beach on their laptop. People miss that they're still on their laptop.

Brad Costanzo: Yes.

AJ Roberts: They're not on the beach [00:12:30] in the water, surfing. They're on the beach with their laptop, working.

Brad Costanzo: And if it's a guy, his wife is over there screaming, you can't hear him, "Honey, come hang out with me." "I've got work to do."

Sarah Jenkins: The beach is an ideal place for a laptop. Sand and water.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, exactly.

AJ Roberts: Yeah.

Brad Costanzo: No, so it was kind of... I didn't have an immediate idea of something I wanted to do. I didn't just want to be... Although I had the skills to teach online marketing, I just didn't want... I was like, "It's so crowded. I don't have anything new to add. I'm just borrowing what everybody else [00:13:00] is saying anyway." So I was like, "Well..." Gathered a lot of strategies and tactics throughout the time, so I just went to some of my colleagues and friends in the business and I just looked for opportunities to help them.

One of my first clients was somebody I think we all know, Drew Canole. I was friends with him. He had a growing fitness brand, and I just said, "Hey, I've got a couple ideas. Blah, blah, blah. Here's a new profit center." And he's like, "You want to run with that?" and I was like, "Yeah, I'll do it. Split the revenue with me." And he said, "Sure." So that [00:13:30] worked out really well. And then he introduced me to some other people that he knew, and I just started growing a consulting business because it was a lot easier than having to build everything from scratch and manage it myself. I could kind of be a commercenary, if you would.

AJ Roberts: Well, you said something interesting, and I think this is something... We've mentioned this on the show before, but for creators, a lot of times they think they have to be in the business, their own business. And now more than ever, there is companies that you can go into either as a consultant or a freelancer or as an advisor or even as an [00:14:00] employee. There's nothing wrong with that. Where you actually do get to do what your brilliance is, what your skill is, what your magic is, and inside another organization. And sometimes you're more valuable there. You can make more money that way, right?

Because take it if you're a copywriter and you're working for yourself. Well, how much money do you have to spend on traffic, right? Because essentially, all your customers have bought, right? So it's time or money, one of those two, you trade in. And most copywriters aren't getting on camera, shooting videos, they're writing. [00:14:30] They're writing stuff. So they have to write ads. Well, if they can only spend a thousand a day, their profits are only going to be a certain amount. Whereas if they go into a big company that's spending a hundred grand a day and they're getting a percentage of that, they could end up making more money than they could currently on their own.

So you mentioned the learning experience and things like that. There's so many benefits sometimes to saying, "Yeah, okay, I'm a creative, and I'm really good at this skill," but there's nothing wrong with taking that skill into other people's company. So-

Brad Costanzo: Absolutely.

AJ Roberts: ... you might have done it because it was [00:15:00] less work as a whole, but it also allowed you and your unique genius to really focus on what you did best.

Brad Costanzo: Absolutely. I've been really good at knowing what I'm bad at. I'm not a good one who runs the business. I'm not administrative. I hate that stuff. Everything from the finance... Even though I have a finance background, I hate the corporate finance. I hate all the-

Sarah Jenkins: You're a true creative.

AJ Roberts: Yeah.

Brad Costanzo: Right, yeah, true creative. And I'm too ADD and I know my weaknesses. As opposed to [00:15:30] just trying to get better at that, I became an entrepreneur in residence, right? Which is a term that I didn't invent, but I love it. And there's a lot of big companies who will do this. They'll hire entrepreneurs to come in and help spearhead projects. They don't necessarily put them in a role, but they give them a project and they say, "We need to get this off the ground. Here's our budget."

I follow this one guy, I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but he's the one where I learned this concept of entrepreneur in residence. I think he went to work for [00:16:00] Coors or Miller, and they were launching some kind of another brand in-house for something else, so they just said, "But we have a bunch of MBAs. We have a bunch of corporate types. We need an entrepreneur, but we're going to give you all the resources and let you build out your team, et cetera." And then he build out entire profit centers inside there, get paid very well, sometimes stock or whatever. I was like, "I actually like that."

So I've been doing that in my consulting. So I don't work with a lot of clients. I'll typically... [00:16:30] Some people say, "Like a fractional CMO." I think of it as an entrepreneur in residence, because also a CMO is somebody who's very process-oriented, and I'm very project oriented, right? So I like to get things off the ground and get them launched and get them going. But I like to make babies.

AJ Roberts: Give me the next thing. Yeah.

Brad Costanzo: I don't like to raise the babies.

AJ Roberts: Well, and to that point, the other interesting thing is that in reality, it's a different skillset to be able to run stuff. And we've had this conversation, I'm a leader, I'm not a manager, right? [00:17:00] And you would think, "Well, you're good with people. You inspire people, you motivate people. You'll be great at managing people."

Brad Costanzo: That's a leader. That's not a manager.

AJ Roberts: Yeah. Well, a manager is someone who gets on people every day and is... I don't have time every day to get on you. I'm onto the next big thing. I can't have 10 phone calls today just to make sure you're doing your work. So that's a very interesting piece as well. But I think that it takes a lot of people time to figure that out, right? And you've done all of the roles so you're able to see, "Well, which [00:17:30] one am I good at? Which one am I not good at?" And you've kind of done a lot of those different roles too to figure out your strengths and weaknesses.

Sarah Jenkins: Your whole story. You started at the beginning about the website HTML, we learned sales copy, we put together... I'm like, "Yeah." When we all start at the beginning, we learn how business works and what we're good at and what we're not.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. Become an accidental expert at a lot of things, but a big time expert in knowing what I'm not good at. I still don't even know what I'm great at. Other people will tell me what I'm great at. I don't feel like I'm great at a lot of stuff. I don't know if it's just internal-

Sarah Jenkins: [inaudible 00:17:59].

AJ Roberts: Well, so yeah, [00:18:00] that's the thing. The stuff you're really great at is the stuff that you're doing flow with, that's easy to you, therefore, you devalue it, right?

Brad Costanzo: Yeah.

AJ Roberts: And I just remember when I was doing seminars all over the world, I'd get up and for two days I would speak. I never had a single note.

Brad Costanzo: I'm like that too.

AJ Roberts: Right? But to me, that was just something I was doing. It wasn't this magical-

Brad Costanzo: You're like [inaudible 00:18:19].

AJ Roberts: Yeah, I was just teaching something I knew, and people saw the fact... Two days in front of an audience, do it without planning. And I'd be like, " [00:18:30] Yeah." But it's like those are the things. And because of that, you overlook that because it's like you're like oftentimes, those are things that you've probably been told you can't get paid for.

I remember back when I was growing up, people say you can't get paid for ideas. Yes, you can. You can get paid a crap load of money. Trust me. Companies pay a fortune to agencies to come up with ad ideas and videos and all those different things. Now, they can't monetize those ideas without execution, but that doesn't have to be you.

Brad Costanzo: You just brought up-

Sarah Jenkins: That's not your problem.

Brad Costanzo: You [00:19:00] just brought up something... I've actually done some videos and content on this as well, because I hate that metaphor. Not metaphor, just that phrase that ideas are worthless without execution. Well, that's like saying children are worthless until they become grown, productive members of society. They just need structure and discipline and nurturing in order to... But it's that pure potential.

That's where ideas come from, because it's also like [00:19:30] the... And I'll get back to this idea of structure and discipline of ideas, but Keith Cunningham, great author, wrote The Road Less Stupid. He's got a great quote that says, "There's nothing worse than running enthusiastically in the wrong direction," right? So if you can execute a bunch, truth is, execution is a commodity. Strategy. And I put ideas under strategy. Strategy and ideas is the premium.

Now, you do need both, but I can go to Upwork or Fiverr and get execution of a lot of stuff. Depending on how much [00:20:00] I pay, it's going to be whatever. But if they're executing in the wrong things, that's the worst thing you can do. But the people who get paid the most are the ones with the best ideas, the best strategy, who can then get them into execution.

And then what I was talking about with structure and nurturing of ideas, I've got a whole process that I follow that I learned. I was mentioning this NLP class that I took years ago, and I discovered this process that Walt Disney used when he was building his business. He realized that whenever we're [00:20:30] coming up with a creative concept or business idea, there's always three voices that are happening. It's either with us or in our group. Have you ever had a great idea and you went to somebody, or you went to AJ and you're like, "AJ, check this out. I got this great idea. Here's what we're going to do. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." What's the first thing somebody... I don't know if AJ does, but somebody might say?

AJ Roberts: But what about-

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. It won't work.

AJ Roberts: I start thinking beyond the idea and going, "Well, did you think about this?"

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. But a lot of times we hear this is why it won't work, right? And that's the [00:21:00] critic.

AJ Roberts: You jump to that.

Brad Costanzo: It's the party pooper.

Sarah Jenkins: Yeah, AJ. You can't say that's why it won't work.

Brad Costanzo: And we do this to ourselves too. We may have this great idea, and then immediately, like, "Oh my God, I'm going to create this product about X, Y... Picking up girls with magic tricks. And okay, here's how I can do it." "But that won't work because of this. Blah, blah, blah."

And then what happens is when that critic comes in, who's no fun, we entrepreneurs, who need to be delusionally optimistic to survive anyway, one of two things will happen. We'll either shut the critic up, give him the Heisman stiff arm and just say, " [00:21:30] Shut up. I'll figure it out when I get there. Those problems, I'll figure it out," because that's what we do. And then we run off half cocked and go, "Oh crap, I should have listened, because that critic had a good point."

AJ Roberts: But you're already on the way down the hill. So that's the key, right? With that critic, even though you realize like, "Oh shit, maybe I should have been more prepared or something like that," you're already on the way down the hill. So the whole concept of building the parachute on the way down, that's where it comes from is you're already in motion. You can't stop. We didn't think about customer support. We need [00:22:00] someone to answer tickets. Well, the fact you need customer support is a progress. Right? Versus go on-

Brad Costanzo: Absolutely.

AJ Roberts: ... what the other critic, obviously-

Brad Costanzo: Absolutely. Well, I mean, the other one... But the other times, then you listen to the critic too much. And oftentimes the one we listen to more than anybody is the one in our head. And then what we have is what I call idea abortion, right? We just get rid of it before it's actually born, because we're like, "It's going to be too hard."

So going back to Walt. So Walt realized this early in the day. He called these three... I don't know if they're voices, whatever, [00:22:30] but the dreamer, the realist, and the critic. And in his office, at his headquarters back in the '30s, it was rumored that he had three different rooms. One was the dreamer's office, and that's where you can imagine something really colorful, et cetera. And then you'd go to another one, the realist. Storyboards everywhere. And then the critic's office, I imagine it was dull and drab.

So he realized that you want to have different spaces for this, because the energy of that space is important. But the rules were very simple. When you're dreaming, just dream. [00:23:00] Don't plan and don't critique. Just paint the picture of what would be amazing, regardless of how it happens. Then when you take that dream and it's fairly well formed, you take it to the realist office and you storyboard it out. What has to happen in order to get from A to B, given what we know? Only rules, don't add to the dream and don't critique it. Because then everybody all at once, and this is kind of important, goes to the critic's office, and the critic's job is not to shoot it down, it's just to find the roadblocks and the hurdles and the things that you're overlooking from the opportunity [00:23:30] costs to the real costs to everything else.

The most important part of that is you're not supposed to solve the challenges that the critic brings up in the critic's office. That's the wrong mindset. Just list them and let everybody be open.

And then you keep on going back and forth and round and round the merry-go-round until you finally go back to the critic, and the critic says, "I don't know. Looks good. Looks like you've answered all my things." Now that's [00:24:00] rocket fuel right there.

How do you use this in real life? So with your team. So if we are working together, I've just told you this simple framework, dream, plan, critique, don't do two things at once, okay? Now, we've got an idea, we're going to launch something. I might say, "Guys, step into the dreamer's office for me." What it does is it tells you what mindset you need to be in, but it also reminds you that, "Okay, when I come up with... You're going to sit on it, you're going to write it down, you're going to come back [00:24:30] to it later."

AJ Roberts: We call that the parking lot.

Sarah Jenkins: Yes. Good parking.

Brad Costanzo: Parking lot. Yeah.

AJ Roberts: Anything that gets you off track is parking lot. No conversation.

Brad Costanzo: Bingo. And-

AJ Roberts: No exploration, nothing.

Brad Costanzo: ... the thing is, some of the most critical people can be some of the most creative because they're imagining all the stuff that can go wrong. So in order to be a critic, you have to have a good imagination. So now this gives them the permission.

AJ Roberts: Yeah, you're more of a bringing it to reality of this is what's actually going to happen. When someone says, "I want to do a webinar." And you're like, "Okay, you've got to write the webinar first." [00:25:00] And then they're like, "I was going to do it next Tuesday." You're like, "Well, you can, but it's a very-

Sarah Jenkins: Not all of us can just spit cuff for hours, AJ.

AJ Roberts: No, but what I'm saying is production time, people really underestimate the time it takes to do things, because they abandon their ideas. Most entrepreneurs move forward like the first critic, and then they're like, "What do I do?" But because they never stepped into a critic's office and went through all of that stuff, they haven't thought about those things, and those things creep up and-

Brad Costanzo: Exactly. [00:25:30] It doesn't take a lot to go through those. To me, it's one of my favorite things to do because it can be done very quickly. I'll do it for myself. If I'm planning something, I like to go for a walk on the beach. Then I get on my whiteboard at home, and then I'll sit on my couch and critique it. Always try to do it in different spaces. But then once more, if I'm working with a client, I let them know the framework. And then whenever we're coming up with something, I let them know where I'm at so they know where they need to be, and then they know they can do this as well to me.

So [00:26:00] it's one of the most structured, effective ways to nurture ideas so they can get to execution without either being abandoned too early or run off half cocked and going, "Well, wow, we didn't look at that."

Do you remember when I started my coffee business?

AJ Roberts: Yeah.

Brad Costanzo: Okay, so I had this coffee brand, I don't know if you knew about this, called Stiletto Coffee.

Sarah Jenkins: I did know about it.

Brad Costanzo: Cool. So we had this cool brand. I was-

AJ Roberts: It was from Brazil, right? The coffee. [inaudible 00:26:28] your wife.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. And it was a very [00:26:30] female-oriented brand. The house blend was called Little Black Dress.

Sarah Jenkins: Love it.

Brad Costanzo: And then the Elevation Roast. And we had some really cool... There was nothing special about the... It was good coffee, but it was all the brand. We both fell in love with this concept for the brand.

And then I knew how to create an eCommerce business. And I remember thinking, "I'll figure out the unit economics once we get it up." And then I got into the business and I was like, "Okay, I'm [00:27:00] going to sell a million bags to make any money." The economics just weren't good, especially starting with no audience to buy this damn coffee. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I neglected that. I remember neglecting that. I was like, "I'll figure it out." I got so in love with my idea, that I didn't take it to the critic. And-

AJ Roberts: I think so many people can relate to that because there is so many people that start their business and they're pricing for their products or their services. In the beginning, people were... [00:27:30] They hire them and they do a great job, and they don't realize their quick growth is because of how cheap they are. They'll charge five grand for this full on video production, dah dah dah. And then when they realize, "To take on three more clients, I need another video editor. That's going to cost me five grand a month," they start... And we can only do one of these... Wait a minute. Now I'm break even or I'm losing money. And I think that that's really... So I love that concept. [00:28:00] You mentioned spaces as a big thing, having a different space, and I've heard that before about productivity. Never in this sense, but in that concept. Do you also separate by days? So you don't have-

Brad Costanzo: I've tried.

AJ Roberts: You don't blend it in one way.

Brad Costanzo: I've tried. Doesn't work. I'm not just [inaudible 00:28:15]. It's kind of like-

AJ Roberts: This is kind of a timer thing.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. And I've literally tried to structure it like this. I never make it past two weeks to say, for example, Monday is [00:28:30] strategy, Tuesday is busy work, Wednesday is calls and connections, Thursday is creation, and never works. It's good in theory for me, but I just don't have enough discipline. And then things get thrown at me and I'm like, "Okay, I don't know what..." Or I just-

Sarah Jenkins: Yeah, what if you get creative on Wednesday? What if you've got busywork on Monday?

Brad Costanzo: Right. So I have tried to do blocking my days a little bit more individually to where if I have creative work to do, I [00:29:00] try to get that done in the morning when I'm the most creative, and then the busywork in the middle of the afternoon at the three o'clock slump or whatever. I've tried to do that, but I'm not good at time and energy management.

Sarah Jenkins: You are truly ADD.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. Truly.

Sarah Jenkins: Do you compartmentalize?

Brad Costanzo: Try.

Sarah Jenkins: Just curious.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. I'm not effective at that. That is a...

Sarah Jenkins: Strategy to overcome some of that.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's just one of my weaknesses is I just kind of run and fun until I can't go anymore.

AJ Roberts: Yeah. I [00:29:30] mean, I think that's most entrepreneurs, right? You put parameters around. Really what comes down to is just discipline. But the problem is you never know where your energy systems are, right? Did you get enough sleep? Did you do this? Did you do that? So a day that's planned to be creative, the night before, maybe you and wife go on a date night and then you say, "Let's go dancing." You're having a great time-

Brad Costanzo: [inaudible 00:29:50].

AJ Roberts: ... let's go dancing. And then you get to bed later than normal. But it's a very important thing you did. But then the next day, you want to get up a little later. So maybe your morning [00:30:00] routine's different. So I've struggled with the same thing.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, I don't know where my head is going to be at when I do it. And if I'm in the mood, I kind of go where the mood strikes me. I would probably be 10 times more successful in my life if I had a little bit-

Sarah Jenkins: You could harness it.

Brad Costanzo: Harness it, right?

AJ Roberts: Maybe. I mean-

Brad Costanzo: Or maybe not.

Sarah Jenkins: Probably.

AJ Roberts: The observation I've made, being around so many different people is when you look at it, none of them follow the same routine. So when it comes to the best productivity system, there's no one thing that you-

Brad Costanzo: That's true, yeah.

AJ Roberts: Usually you see a lot of patterns. Everybody gets up at 5:00 AM. Well, that's not true. I know very successful people that don't [00:30:30] get up till the afternoon, and I'm going, "How..." But they're night people and that's their life.

Think of a comic. A comic's not going to be up early in the morning unless they have to do a radio bit, but they're up at a club every night on the road, whatever they're doing. Then that's when they have to perform. They have to be at their very best at 10:00 PM at night. Imagine. I couldn't do that. I'm a sleeper.

Brad Costanzo: It's funny. Years ago, I don't know if he still sells this, but Perry Marshall put together this thing called the marketing DNA quiz. Have you guys ever taken this?

Sarah Jenkins: Yeah, Perry Marshall.

AJ Roberts: Never taken [00:31:00] it. I saw [inaudible 00:31:01] back in the day.

Brad Costanzo: Super cool. When we're offline, I'll show you mine. But it does a really good job. It's personality profile, but it's really for marketers too. One of the things it'll say is I'm a... I forget what it is. Sales improviser. It's like, "You are like MacGyver. You never script things ahead of time. You don't need a long runway. People wonder how you're able to pull a rabbit out of your hat. But you need people to follow around and pick up your mess behind you. You have the ability to give people... You'll inspire them, but give them whiplash." Go like, "What the hell?" So it shows both [00:31:30] sides. But then you'll say, "These are the parts of marketing businesses that you should pursue. This is what you should avoid. This is your work mode, et cetera. But you're an improviser."

AJ Roberts: I love things like that. I've done a few.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, it's probably marketingdna.com or something like that, if he still sells it. But it was a really interesting thing because it allowed me to see my superpowers, but then all the stuff that... I don't like spreadsheets. I have to use them and stuff, but I hate operations.

AJ Roberts: Those are such important things to know. Roger Hamilton has [00:32:00] the wealth dynamics and talent dynamics, but-

Brad Costanzo: Love Roger Hamilton.

AJ Roberts: ... it's so important to know what your primary personality is, right? Are you a star? Are you a creator? Are you a connector? How do you operate? Because it doesn't mean you can't do the other thing, but go back to what you were saying, what you're best. You start to realize, "I am better when I just do this thing." You don't always get to just do that thing, but-

Brad Costanzo: I love Roger's work, by the way.

AJ Roberts: ... I love all of those different things.

Brad Costanzo: I think it's Millionaire Master Plan is one of my favorite books next to [00:32:30] The 4-Hour Workweek. It just had so many... Have you guys both read it or... Yeah, it just had so many useful things from the personality test in the beginning to these are the phases out of the lighthouse. And I'm like, "That's kind of cool," because I found mine. And it is funny where every one of my big successes, if I tie them back to his prescription in that book, I was like, "Yeah, whenever I did those things, it happened to work out well," even if I didn't do those intentionally.

AJ Roberts: Now that's interesting, thinking about building the businesses. You're [00:33:00] going into multiple businesses. And one of the things I've noticed is that people join coaching programs and masterminds or even purchase books and courses, and that purchase is not relevant to where they are right now. So-

Brad Costanzo: Totally.

AJ Roberts: ... with advising so many different businesses and being involved with different niches and industries, have you found that there's similarities? Or is it more like, "Where are they right now and what's the next step?" And most of the time, they can't see the next step. They're looking too far ahead or [00:33:30] they're not... Is that what you noticed?

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, I see that quite a bit. A lot of people are... And I do this too, but learning things for just in case, as opposed to just in time learning. I love learning just in case learning, but then I look back and I'm like, "I'm never going to use this." Maybe I will.

But yeah, I feel that most business owners are too... I put myself in there as well. But it's like you've got to focus on what's right ahead [00:34:00] of you, but you're trying to focus on what's way out here. But then there's such a big gap in between what's right here and what's way out there. But that middle of the gap is where most of the stuff happens. Because the stuff that's right in front of you, oftentimes you can hire it done, you can outsource it, you can just get it done. The stuff way out here is a lot harder to get done. It's like that, "What's your North Star?" I want to 10X. I want to do whatever. But it's all the stuff that happens in the... That's kind of like to me like a blind spot, because it's too far out.

Sarah Jenkins: [00:34:30] It's unknown, but it's not your goals.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, exactly. And right now, we're-

Sarah Jenkins: Frodo had the ring, there's the mountain.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. What happens in between?

Sarah Jenkins: Right.

Brad Costanzo: Right? And right now, I think we're in a really interesting space with the advent of all of the AI tools, and it's thrown a lot of planning into the... I don't think that most businesses, especially probably most of the businesses that are probably listening or watching this show can feasibly [00:35:00] plan anything past 24 months. I think everything after that is a guess and a hope and a prayer, because things could be either 10 times better and easier or 10 times worse.

And the truth is here in, what is it? May of 2023, we just don't know. So it's causing a lot for everybody. It's like, "I don't know. Part of this is really cool. Part of it's not." But it's forcing us to look a little bit past... To me, it's forcing me to look in that blind spot zone in [00:35:30] the middle, because I'm going, "Okay, I've got to get this stuff done now that I'm working on." But a couple steps ahead, I've got to plan for that. I don't even know five, 10 years down the road. Those don't exist anymore to me. If you're in a expertise business, if you're in a knowledge business. Outside of manual labor-

Sarah Jenkins: You never know though.

Brad Costanzo: Don't know. Yeah.

Sarah Jenkins: Well, that's so funny you say that. Every two years, every 24 months, my life changes significantly. And someone's like, "What's your five year plan?" I'm like, "I have no idea. But I have a two [00:36:00] year plan-

Brad Costanzo: To hopefully be alive.

Sarah Jenkins: ... and I have a 10 year plan." The five years, that's... I have no idea what the next two years are going to bring. But I know bigger where 10 years I want to be, but yeah, that five year doesn't make sense to me anymore.

Brad Costanzo: No. And I know-

Sarah Jenkins: Especially since COVID just took three years of our lives.

Brad Costanzo: Right. And I know 10 years in general how I want my life to be, but as far as my business, I don't know. I want to hopefully be making really good money and doing something I still love with people that I like working with. But beyond that, I'm like, "I don't know."

AJ Roberts: Well, this is the thing. You take a dream, and that [00:36:30] dream is just boom, this is what I want to do, right? So whether it's make a million dollars or back when I was lifting, break world records. You set that. And then it becomes a goal when you decide to do the work to get to that. But the problem is is that the timeline expectation is the unknown, right? So I always say this, you work with a lot of industry experts that have a following. It's really easier to go into their business when they already have an audience and test a new offer and do this and do that. It's very difficult if you were working with someone who says, "I want to build that," right?

Brad Costanzo: [00:37:00] It's brand new.

AJ Roberts: So that person, it might take 10 years to get to the same goal as the other person comes to you with, just based on where they are right now. And I always look at it when you were in school. There was always that a-hole who literally didn't have to do anything and get A+s. But then there was that person who studied their butt off to get an A+.

Sarah Jenkins: I got Cs. I studied a lot.

AJ Roberts: But they both got the same grades, but the effort to get those grades were completely different. I think that's the part of being human that most people don't want to admit is that we're all at different things in different [00:37:30] areas, right? Some of us are ahead in this area, some of us are ahead in that area, some of us are way behind.

Sarah Jenkins: Some a-hole.

AJ Roberts: It's not equal. There never will be equal. There'll never be an even playing field. Everybody's starting from... Just if you're born in America, it's very different than if you were born in, say, India.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, absolutely.

AJ Roberts: Right? It's like your starting point of just where your birth, and you don't choose your... Well, depends on what you believe, right? Some people choose you. But what I mean is it's like you're not consciously making a decision of where you're going to come into this world, what economic level, what your racial [00:38:00] profile. You don't make those choices. You show up and then you have to step in front. Where you can get to has been proven that anybody can do it.

So unless your dream is beyond what anybody else has achieved ever so there is the unknown that there is no path to follow, the majority of people's goals are literally just-

Sarah Jenkins: Attainable.

AJ Roberts: ... something someone else has achieved. Therefore, you can achieve it too. Your path just might be different. And you have to be more realistic. Everybody could play professional basketball. Not everybody will make the NBA.

Brad Costanzo: Right.

AJ Roberts: Right? There's enough leagues [00:38:30] around the world.

Sarah Jenkins: If everybody played, it'd be a very boring sport.

AJ Roberts: Well, everybody that wanted to.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah.

AJ Roberts: But they might have to move to a different country to be able to play professional ball. But the options are there. I think that that's the big piece. You mentioned the unknown. That everybody can do the first bit, everybody wants the end bit, but the middle bit is where the unknown is. Unknown because it's going to be different for every person.

Sarah Jenkins: Meghan Markle is a princess. I just missed a few steps in there.

AJ Roberts: I don't think she is anymore.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, [00:39:00] they gave that up.

AJ Roberts: I think they gave it all up.

Sarah Jenkins: It might be her fault.

AJ Roberts: She's the princess of LA now, right?

Brad Costanzo: That's right. Exactly.

AJ Roberts: She was not at the king's coronation. Harry was there. Harry's there. They had to come in through the back door, and they didn't get to stand with the family. I was like, "That's an insult." I guess he was there, so...

Well, you do a lot of work with Brandetize, and we mentioned the expert businesses. It's very interesting because a lot of people want to get into that, right? Especially if they're creative. They have an expertise and [00:39:30] they want to put themselves out there.

What are some lessons that you've learned working with these... Because a lot of these brands are already established. In order to kind of navigate today's world and the ever-change... Even things like AI, we got the potential rough times economically, but then you have AI at the same time that could... So what are some things and lessons you've seen with that right now?

Brad Costanzo: So it's never been easier to be an expert and it's never been harder to make money as an expert, [00:40:00] I think, because it's so crowded, right? It's like anytime the moat gets filled up with dirt and anybody can do it, it's great because the barriers are down. It just means that you're going to-

Sarah Jenkins: But it's down for everybody.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, it's going to be a much more crowded market. So because of that, you need to learn how to stand out in a crowded market and differentiate yourself.

I've got a couple clients who are worlds of different. They're both in the personal development, how to basically [00:40:30] be more confident and achieve more niche. One guy has a tremendously public, well-known background. And it's like, "Well, look what he's done." They don't even care what his system is, because what he's accomplished. The other guy has studied and studied and he's helped some really interesting people from Olympic athletes to this, that, and the other, but he's not a name. The things he's accomplished are not...

Sarah Jenkins: [00:41:00] Notable.

Brad Costanzo: Notable. His system is good, but there's a lot of good systems out there, right? So with somebody like him, we have to find a ways to stand out in a crowded market.

And I've got somewhere in my phone, I've got a list of all these things because I try to keep a list. But there's different ways to differentiate. So there's the ones... And this goes for, by the way, personality expert brands or physical brands. This is the mass market stuff. You can be the cheapest, [00:41:30] you can spend the most money. You can be Nike and just spend the most money on advertising. You can be the most expensive. You can be Gucci. You can have certain things that are hard to actually... It's hard to be the most expensive and a successful. It's hard to be the cheapest. It's hard to spend the most advertising. You have to be a major corporation to pull that off. But there's other things you can do. You can have... So social proof is one, right? So you can have [00:42:00] a big social media following that you've built or bought or something like that. So when people look at it, they go, "Wow, a million people follow you. You must be good." But then you can have that social proof.

AJ Roberts: Make sure you get that blue check too.

Brad Costanzo: Right, that blue check for-

AJ Roberts: $800 million in two weeks-

Brad Costanzo: I heard that.

AJ Roberts: ... they made.

Brad Costanzo: Isn't that crazy?

AJ Roberts: I'm going to start selling blue checks at Kartra.

Brad Costanzo: Right?

Sarah Jenkins: If I had a Twitter with a brand, I'd buy it.

Brad Costanzo: Was that Twitter who made that much money, or Facebook?

AJ Roberts: Instagram.

Brad Costanzo: Instagram, yeah.

Sarah Jenkins: Damn.

Brad Costanzo: That's crazy.

Sarah Jenkins: Twitter missed the trick.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. But then there's actual proof. Demonstrable proof. [00:42:30] I can show you that if you do X, you will get Y, right?

And I may miss a couple of these things, but there is the unique mechanism, the big idea, that signature solution that you have that... The interesting thing about a unique selling proposition or unique mechanism, people get hung up. I used to get hung up on it. It has to be unique. Well, it's hard to be unique, right? You have the perception of uniqueness. Like P90X had muscle confusion. [00:43:00] That wasn't unique. It's just do a whole bunch of things, do a whole bunch of exercises. That's what it was. But they-

AJ Roberts: CrossFit was the same when it came after it.

Brad Costanzo: Right. But then they just made it-

Sarah Jenkins: [inaudible 00:43:10].

Brad Costanzo: ... sound unique because they branded it as unique. It's that branding it is something unique. It's like, "Well, we're the only ones who have this."

Domino's Pizza is famous for their USP, like 30 minutes or less, or it's free. That's not unique. They were the only ones doing it. But anybody, Papa John's could have came out and said the same thing. Domino's didn't have a unique [00:43:30] corner on that market. They could have said 29 minutes. Six minute abs, seven minute abs. You guys get that reference?

Sarah Jenkins: Yeah.

Brad Costanzo: No, you can't do six minute abs.

Sarah Jenkins: We're all from fitness. It's no good.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah. So then there's empathetic bonding, right? Can you really, through your copy, just make that person feel as though you get me more than anybody? Like, "Holy crap."

I remember when this was done to me 2009, May. I sort of remember that because I've gone back to this email a lot. Rich Schefren [00:44:00] sent out an email to his list. The day before, I was at a conference and I was a year into this business. And I told somebody, I was like, "The problem is I feel like I'm playing entrepreneur. I'm just doing everything. I got a job. I'm just doing freaking everything. But I'm not an entrepreneur, I'm not hiring people, I'm not doing this stuff. I feel like I'm playing at it." The next day, Rich sent an email, the subject line was, "Are you playing," in quotes, "'business,' Brad?" Like, "Whoa." And I opened it-

Sarah Jenkins: He's read your diary.

Brad Costanzo: ... up, I read it, and I immediately bought [00:44:30] his Business Growth Systems without reading the sales page. It's like whatever you're selling, I'm buying it because you hit the nail on the head. And in copy, oftentimes it's called a dominant emotional release. It's like boom, you got it. So if you can work on that, and if you don't have anything super unique, but you can work on this empathetic bonding, amazing.

AJ Roberts: Just pause you there. That's actually why niche businesses tend to do better than generalized businesses. So if you're just selling marketing systems, [00:45:00] you're probably not going to do as well as someone who is selling real estate marketing systems. The reason for that is just languaging. Because if you call them customers and they call them clients, or agents or whatever the word... And you can create language that bonds... They're more-

Brad Costanzo: He gets me and my specific problems.

AJ Roberts: Exactly. Because even though we all know you're not a unique snowflake, and these solutions will work moldy industry around the world, the reality is is individually, no matter what anybody tells us, we still [00:45:30] think we're different, it only happens to us. The amount of times I'll search something on Google to see, and there's just like 5,000 pages on this specific thing that I was looking for. It's like, "Well, I'm not the first to have this thought, obviously." But-

Brad Costanzo: Bingo. Bingo. That's huge.

AJ Roberts: ... that's important, I think. I just want to mention that because I think that that's... When you look at... If you're struggling with that and you're trying to connect with people, you're probably talking too broad. You're probably missing the fact that you should only be talking to one person, and that one person, the more specific you can be down to exactly what [00:46:00] they do as a profession-

Brad Costanzo: Bingo.

AJ Roberts: ... the better you're going to do. And if that means taking the same product and just creating different marketing pieces to promote that same product, but to the different audiences, that's what you should do.

Brad Costanzo: Absolutely. The other thing about this empathetic bonding, which goes into the next one, which is just epiphany creation. If you can create an epiphany in somebody, like, "Oh my God, I never looked at it like that," it is an exciting [00:46:30] emotional reaction. And memories and emotions are so perfectly tied together that if you can create an exciting revelation in somebody, they will forever associate you with that. So you own a place in their mind. Example-

Sarah Jenkins: Tony Robbins.

Brad Costanzo: Tony Robbins. Tim Ferriss. When he was talking about what is the new rich or what is this, that, or the other. I remember when he said... One of my favorite quotes of the entire book was, "People think they want to be millionaires, [00:47:00] but what they really want to do is experience what they believe only millionaires can experience." That happens to be the ability to take trips and have time freedom and not-

AJ Roberts: Fly private. And not stand in a line.

Brad Costanzo: Right. And most people just want that freedom. They just want to be able to do that. But when he wrote it like that, to me it was an epiphany. Most people think they want to be millionaires. They really just want to experience what they believe only millionaires can experience. And he went on to say, "And I'm here to basically [00:47:30] dismantle that belief that you..." I think he was saying, "Look, if you can generate 10 or $20,000 a month, but you're only working four hours a week on it, congratulations. You have probably more freedom and the things you want than a millionaire does."

AJ Roberts: Well, most online experts make money now. It's like they make about 30 grand a month and everybody thinks they're millionaires.

Brad Costanzo: Right, exactly. But that's an epiphany. And then a couple of the other ones that I'm trying to remember off the top of my head, our mutual friend, Frank Kern, really called it goodwill, which is can you just put out good content [00:48:00] that is just... You are constantly helping me, so by golly, I know, like, and trust. I really like this person that they may not be the slickest, best presenter. They might have this, but they just keep on showing up consistently and helping me, so I'm bonding with you. So I'm going to give you money when it comes.

And then the last one I can remember off the top of my head is what I call this 10 star experience. We all know what a five star experience is. How can you give somebody such an outrageously good customer experience, that they're going to talk [00:48:30] about you to their friends?

Zappos, perfect example, right? Their customer experience. People will rave and talk about it just because of that.

Amazon is the easiest company in the world to return stuff with if you're not happy. So they're a singular focus on that.

Now, they also happen to have the lowest prices, the most convenient. Hard to do. But it's not that hard to give somebody a 10 star customer experience when most people, customer service is the last thing they hire. Like, "Let's just hire a bunch of cheap overseas labor to do customer [00:49:00] service and not think about it." But if you ever work with a company who's got great customer service, you're like, "This is worth everything."

AJ Roberts: Well, that's what we talk about all the time with our customer experience. It's like when you look at it, most people think of a customer journey, and it's super interesting. They say customer journey, but when you look at most people's customer journey-

Brad Costanzo: They stop at the sale.

AJ Roberts: ... it stops at the sale. The customer journey really begins at the sale. Up until that point, they weren't a customer, right?

Brad Costanzo: Yeah.

AJ Roberts: They're just someone who's watching from the outside. The minute they give you money, you should be trying [00:49:30] to figure out how do we move them along this journey so they go from someone who's just curious, to potentially maybe using it, to completely adopting it, to becoming an advocate. That should be a systematized process that you work on. And I would say right now, in today's world, with the way it is, the way you win in business is by having a unique experience beyond the purchase of the product, service, whatever it is. Because [inaudible 00:49:56]-

Brad Costanzo: Especially if they're not just a one-stop... Buy it once and... If you buy it once and [00:50:00] move on, maybe. But that's no way to grow a business.

AJ Roberts: Exactly. Because the reality is is that if you just give them what they pay for, it's not enough. And you think it should be, but it's not.

Brad Costanzo: No. It's like a one night stand, right? It's like you meet the girl in the bar.

AJ Roberts: [inaudible 00:50:15].

Brad Costanzo: You do-

Sarah Jenkins: Back to the bar tricks.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, do the bar tricks.

Sarah Jenkins: He does have that skill.

Brad Costanzo: You do all the bar tricks. The girls are swooning over you. You tell her about all the cool stuff. You make her really like you. She agrees to go home with you. You have a one night stand and then you never call her again. It's like, "Wait a minute. [00:50:30] Come on. There's more to this." That's what, unfortunately, a lot of people, I think, treat their customers like is a one night stand. Thanks for the money. I've got to go get more. I've got to put more in there, as opposed to treating those customers as real customers. That's a great analogy too.

AJ Roberts: Yeah, I just think it's something right now everybody could look at. And they spend all this time on sales and marketing and things like that. Very few people are figuring out, "Okay, once someone's given us their money, how do we make it so they just want to give us more?"

And then the examples are out there. When you look at Disney, when you look at these things. And [00:51:00] I think that's the hard part is it's a lot of work to have a business regardless of what business it is. The ones that are winning when you actually look at it, they've either chosen a lifestyle business and they've kept it at a certain amount... They make a certain amount of money, but they've realized that that's the cap, right? And they could make more money, but they choose not to because it will create more headaches.

Brad Costanzo: Stress, yeah.

AJ Roberts: And then-

Brad Costanzo: Frankly, that's me. I'm a lifestyle guy. But I've gone this way. [00:51:30] I started off as a lifestyle guy, and then I was like, "No, let's scale this." And then I was like, "This sucks." So I'm back to lifestyle to a large degree.

Sarah Jenkins: We've both done that too.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah.

Sarah Jenkins: We've both done where it's we make enough money. It's like, "I'll just keep making this much money every month." We live pretty great. It's awesome. And we're like, "We need to grow it." And then we grow it and we're like, "Shoot, this is really hard."

Brad Costanzo: Why did I do this?

Sarah Jenkins: Way more work. Now I can't do any of the fun things.

AJ Roberts: Well, the hard part about growth is that everybody just thinks it's going to be linear.

Brad Costanzo: No.

AJ Roberts: Right? If you're training periodization, we just add five pounds a week to the bar. How long are you going to [00:52:00] add five pounds a week to bar?

Sarah Jenkins: Apparently until you hit a thousand.

AJ Roberts: But that's not how it worked, right? So that's like with business, when you decide to scale, you also have to realize there's probably going to be a period of very low cash flow because you're technically investing for the future. But the problem is-

Sarah Jenkins: [inaudible 00:52:20].

AJ Roberts: ... is if you're a lifestyle type person, all of a sudden, you need to put that money back into the company in order to get through. It might take years to do that. So [00:52:30] there's a level of commitment. And neither one's right or wrong. Everybody's cut differently. Some people, that's their thing. They come in, they take a company over at that point, right? Versus they don't want to build it, they just want to take it over when it gets to that growth point. So-

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, I think my-

AJ Roberts: ... it's very interesting.

Brad Costanzo: ... thing is I've... One thing I'm really good at is I know how to enjoy my life. I'm very good at when I'm not working, I know what I'm going to do, what I'm going to enjoy. That is my priority. My wife and I have a great relationship. We like to travel. We like to do things. We [00:53:00] like to not be completely stressed out. We've got enough money to where we're not worried about stuff. I wouldn't consider myself wealthy by my standards, but I mean, some people may consider myself wealthy by their standards. Everything's relative. But yeah, I'm at that point where I know myself, right? It's like I know that more is not necessarily more, especially if I have to give up too much of the things I enjoy. And then so I kind of went back to my investment roots and I said, "Well, you don't have to get rich from the business."

[00:53:30] By the way, I may rabbit trail around here, one of my other favorite books, a lot of epiphanies, was Millionaire Fastlane by M. J. DeMarco, if you guys ever read that. But he talks about how most people get rich off of an exit event, right? They don't get rich through the process. It's an event that happens. One of the epiphanies and the quotes that I had that I loved was, he goes, "People think that get rich quick doesn't exist." He goes, "They're confusing it with its evil cousin, get rich easy. Get rich quick does exist. You have to redefine what quick means."

This was my epiphany. He [00:54:00] said, "Let's say you start a business and you bust your butt at it for five years, and then you sell it for $5 million, $10 million, whatever. It's possible. It doesn't happen all that often, but it's possible. Did you get rich quick? Because you made that $10 million. Did you get rich quick? Well, you didn't get rich overnight, and it wasn't easy, but five years versus 40 years, yeah, that's actually pretty quick." So if you redefine what quick is... "But that happened," he's like, "through an exit event." So you have to build a business that has a sellable, [00:54:30] exitable value, and then that's where you get the big paycheck. And for the longest time, I was chasing that. And I've had a couple of small exits. I was like, "Wow, it is fun to get several hundred thousand dollars." I've never had a seven figure exit. But it's fun to get that.

But then I also realized that through proper management of your cashflow, if you have a profitable business, even if you're a consultant, and you put that into the right investment vehicles, right other things, you may not get that big exit event, but you can exit your business [00:55:00] quicker or have a lot less stress, because my business doesn't have to work out as well if my investments are doing well. So that's where in the past several years, I went back to my investment roots and started investing in companies, both private, public, Bitcoin, things like that, to go, "All right, let's just shepherd this cash over here," as opposed to just dumping it into a business that I don't necessarily want to grow my business to the point where it's unmanageable, because I don't like running businesses.

AJ Roberts: You don't [00:55:30] want to have to have employees-

Brad Costanzo: I like making the babies.

AJ Roberts: ... and deal with them on a daily basis, right? That's-

Brad Costanzo: I don't like raising the babies.

AJ Roberts: But it's interesting you say that. I don't know about-

Sarah Jenkins: We all like making the babies.

AJ Roberts: I don't know about you, Sarah, but the difference between my 20s and 30s when it comes to how much money I made was going from essentially being a gambler, right? And everything was going to be the home run. And-

Brad Costanzo: [inaudible 00:55:53].

AJ Roberts: ... having a few home runs, but realizing you don't win the game with a home run, right? To in my 30s, being like... And most [00:56:00] of that was the transition when I had children and suddenly realizing that if I did die tomorrow, who takes care of them for the next 20 years? Right? Okay, then... Well, how much money would I need to have if I die tomorrow for them so that they could live exactly how we live now? Not better, not worse, but exactly how we live now until they're out of the house.

And when you calculate that number, adjust it for inflation, you realize what you're trying to do is not going to get you there right now. So [00:56:30] while you still can take the risks, you also have to have some kind of... Not safety net, but you have to have some kind of plan that if this doesn't work out... Because it's not just about you anymore. I've got my wife, I've got my children. It's about them. And my dreams shouldn't then affect their life because I got hit by a car or something. Something bad happens, and then they suffer for that.

Brad Costanzo: I'd actually feel bad for the car, but-

AJ Roberts: Right. But they suffer [00:57:00] for that. So that shifted my mindset to, "Okay, I have to start understanding investment strategies and building insurance and the bank of you and things like that." And then when you do that, something interesting happened to me, and again, I love your guys' own experiences, but it fundamentally shifted me from ever being in the scarcity mindset, because no matter what... Or have all this stuff over here. So it actually has taken away some of those poor decisions to make quick money [00:57:30] because of the safety that is there.

Brad Costanzo: That's the key. That's what so many people... Unfortunately, this is easier to say than to do, but it's the first... It kind of goes back to what Roger Hamilton talked about too is getting out of that survival mode. But you've got to get that foundation, because if you remove the dangers... And there's a difference between fear and danger, right? Fear is a perception that something imaginary may happen. A danger is... I know there's danger, right? You're in foreclosure or something is happening. I've got these bills coming up. I might be homeless because of X. [00:58:00] But the minute you remove that stuff, the pressure just disappears and it allows you to be more creative. It allows you to get paid to create the things you want to create, and not the things you have to create. It's what keeps you from having to chase the shiny objects. It's what keeps you from having to come out with a sleazy biz op offer that you know will sell, but it won't deliver it.

It's what allows you to operate ethically and patiently so that you can build the right [00:58:30] thing for you. And just not having that danger in the back is so... I think it's everything, right? Everybody wants the big prize, but really, the big prize to me is peace of mind, because so many people don't have it. We all know people exactly like this. They make a lot of money, or they've made a lot of money, and yet they're still... There's that financial danger there. They're [00:59:00] one move away from losing it all or having it all fall apart because it's built on a house of cards.

AJ Roberts: We see that a lot with athletes, right? Especially-

Brad Costanzo: Yes.

AJ Roberts: ... in the fighting world right now.

Brad Costanzo: Huge.

AJ Roberts: When they should retire, because look, fighting is not a regular sport. You're getting punched in the face. You're doing serious damage to your body. They have to be in your 50s, still having to have a fight to make the money for the year or whatever. At some point, you're not going to be able to step in the ring anymore. That's the scary part, right? [00:59:30] So obviously, that's a very physical example, but metaphorically, it's the same thing for an individual.

Brad Costanzo: To me, peace of mind is the ultimate flex of success. It's like, "I'm unaffected." Right?

Sarah Jenkins: Well, I think we're always supposed to be driven to achieve something as human beings. We had a client back in the day, he invented silly string.

Brad Costanzo: Nice.

Sarah Jenkins: So he got this super big payoff, and then he acquired a wife, who may or may not have liked him that much, and he was just the most miserable guy I've ever seen [01:00:00] because he had nothing he wanted to achieve. He's a little older. He's got nothing going for him.

Brad Costanzo: He's like, "I'm done."

Sarah Jenkins: He's got enough money, and he's like, "I don't even know what to do with myself anymore." It was really disappointing to see. Whereas we're trying to grow stuff and it's amazing how fast you get to that... I want to just make half a million. Then when you get there, you're like, "I just want to make a million." It's amazing how it moves once you've gotten [inaudible 01:00:23].

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, they call that... There's a name for that too.

Sarah Jenkins: Really?

Brad Costanzo: It's called hedonic adaptation. So you know what hedonism means?

Sarah Jenkins: Yeah.

Brad Costanzo: Hedonism is just the pursuit [01:00:30] of pleasure. Well, so hedonic adaptation is when that thing that was pleasurable becomes your new normal, and then you've adapt and now it's no longer fun, right? Like the sports car. You buy the fancy sports car. And I did this. I had a beautiful Audi R8 for a while. It was so much fun to drive. But then after about a year, you're like, "I'm just driving an Audi. I'm driving down the road. It's whatever." It becomes-

AJ Roberts: I'm about to sell my Bentley because we moved to the country, we got one of these converted vans [01:01:00] to go on day trips and adventures. And we got a full electric vehicle because we're driving so far to go places. So I'm not really driving it. It's just sitting there and I'm going, "Man, we just don't need it."

Brad Costanzo: It's fun to get in, but-

AJ Roberts: Yeah. I mean, I'm driving it once every three weeks.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, you don't feel as-

Sarah Jenkins: I love mine. I'd drive mine for years. Had my one for, what, four or five years?

AJ Roberts: Yeah.

Sarah Jenkins: I love it.

AJ Roberts: But it's like-

Brad Costanzo: They're still fun. I still always loved it, but what I'm saying is it's never as cool as the first time you get it.

AJ Roberts: Yeah. It just [01:01:30] becomes your normal.

Brad Costanzo: Right? It becomes your normal, and then you kind of want to upgrade, right? It's like it's just one of those things.

Sarah Jenkins: The Clarence [inaudible 01:01:36].

Brad Costanzo: Yeah.

AJ Roberts: Well, there was a video that I saw one time, and it's like the guy is walking and someone goes past him. It starts raining. Someone goes past him on a skateboard, and he's like... And then the skateboard looks at the bicyclist. The bicyclist looks at the motorcycle. The motorcycle looks at the car. The car looks at the nicer car. And then it looks over at a boat, like a yacht. And then the yacht looks up at a helicopter, and the helicopter looks at a private jet. And then [01:02:00] the last thing is a rocket ship taking off, right? It's like perspective-

Sarah Jenkins: Okay, Bezos.

AJ Roberts: Depending on where you are, your perspective, right?

Brad Costanzo: Perspective is is everything. And you mentioned something else about we need something to achieve, and I do agree, especially people like ourselves. Not everybody, but we're built different, right? But people like ourselves, probably the people tuning into this are different.

There's that interesting area of if we all want to hit it big and walk away with a $100 million exit, mic drop. I'm out. See [01:02:30] you. Bye, Felicia. But we don't really, because I think having that... You're having enough success to where you can do what you want. You've got some time freedom, but you're not quite there. So you're still-

Sarah Jenkins: What else can you do?

Brad Costanzo: ... ambitious to struggle, and that you want to create more. Because I do worry about if I ever... I actually don't worry. This doesn't keep me up at night. But if I ever had a big windfall, how lazy would I be and for how long? And then would I be really driven?

Sarah Jenkins: Where would you put your bunker?

Brad Costanzo: Where would I put my bunker? Right, exactly. I'd be buying that. But I like [01:03:00] not having everything I want, because it engages the creative parts of my mind to go get that next thing.

AJ Roberts: Well, I've tricked myself into that, right? So all the investments and everything, all of that stuff. So all automatic, right? So it all goes out of the bank account.

Brad Costanzo: So you always feel broke.

AJ Roberts: So when I look at the bank account, I'm like, "I have no money."

Sarah Jenkins: I feel the same way.

AJ Roberts: I never account for all of the assets and all of the value and all of the... Like how Forbes does their list and they say, "Elon Musk is the richest guy in the world." And Elon's going, "I don't have that kind of money," right? It's all on paper, right?

Brad Costanzo: Yeah.

AJ Roberts: So-

Sarah Jenkins: [01:03:30] Well, net worth is a mystery. But I mean-

Brad Costanzo: I heard Grant Cardone talking about that too. He goes, "At the end of every year, I'm broke. I'm starting over," because he's just dumping it back in-

AJ Roberts: But it's the only way... Comfort is a killer. Comfort is a killer. And the only way to get out of that is to create some kind of scenario, whether it's real or not real, but you respond to in order to be motivated

Brad Costanzo: In the short term, it motivates you because you look in your bank account, it's like, "I got $5,000 in there. I'm broke." But then for a lot of people, only $5,000-

Sarah Jenkins: That's pretty rich.

Brad Costanzo: ... is a lot of money. But [01:04:00] for some people, it's like, "Oh man, I'm not going to make-

AJ Roberts: Anyone here in California.

Sarah Jenkins: Nothing. They're about to be homeless.

Brad Costanzo: Right. But yeah, if you know in the short term that motivates you, "I've got to get some cash coming in." But if you know, "Okay, I've got a million dollar policy over here, or investment fund, I'm good," it's just not as liquid.

It was kind of funny too. So I did experience a little version of this too. So I was very involved in the crypto investing, and I thought I was brilliant because I got involved earlier in this last round [01:04:30] than most people did. Over the course of about a year and a half, I was up a million dollars in profit and I was beating my chest. Look at me.

Sarah Jenkins: Awesome.

Brad Costanzo: Woo-hoo. This is fun. And then now that money's gone, right? And plus some capital, plus some principal. But I remember my motivation level was... I mean, a million dollars is a lot of money in a year, but it wasn't so much money I can just flip the bird to the world and retire. But I noticed how much my motivation [01:05:00] went down and my creativity went down and everything else.

And then when that disappeared, I mean, it sucked. There were a handful of tears. But it forced me back into work and it forced me back into being creative and to get back at it. And I just had to tell myself what... I think we all remember Sean Stephenson, but his famous words, his last words, but he lived by this is, "It didn't happen to me, it happened for me." So I ask myself, "Why did this happen for [01:05:30] me?" It was just like, "Well, because you're lazy. You're intrinsically lazy, and the universe does not want you to be... You're not done yet."

Sarah Jenkins: That was too easy.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, that was too easy. You ain't done yet. Get back to work. I was like, "All right." That's happened several times where I've lost everything because I've become a gambler. And I was like, "All right, well, I guess the reason it happened for me is because I ain't done. Because I do wonder if you throw a bunch of money in my pocket, I'm going to be done for a while at least. Maybe a year.

Sarah Jenkins: Oh God, I couldn't sit still if I had... So every time I pay the IRS, [01:06:00] I definitely cry a little, and then my bank is super low and I feel really broke for a while. Just my bank gets pad enough, I've got to pay the IRS again. Shoot. But no, I think if I had... On my days off, I'm still creating. I'm doing art with the kids. I'm creating relationships or we're doing the garden and we're spending money every day we're not working. So really, we should be working more because otherwise, we'll spend whatever we've made.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah.

AJ Roberts: Well, and that's why you see Walmart greeters in their 80s, because they never accounted for the fact that when they do retire, that you're actually probably going to [01:06:30] spend more money. So that's the problem when you get a bunch of money, and these guys who win the-

Brad Costanzo: Because now you've got nothing to do.

AJ Roberts: ... lottery and stuff like that, they go spend it and then they're like, "I don't have any more money. So now what do I do?" And you have to go back to work. So I think you find that balance. And Ryan Stewman, my friend, he said that the reason he stays so motivated is because he just drains the accounts every month. And by draining the accounts and putting them into investments that are not easy to liquidate, it creates that pressure. But it's a game. You just have to figure it out.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, but [01:07:00] that's the way to do it. No, he's doing it the smart way, which is put them into investments. Don't drain the account with stuff.

AJ Roberts: Yes, yes.

Sarah Jenkins: Like gambling or crypto.

Brad Costanzo: Yes, exactly. Right?

Sarah Jenkins: Buy bar trick books.

Brad Costanzo: Right. But yeah, you can-

AJ Roberts: Skills.

Brad Costanzo: ... go buy the-

AJ Roberts: Businesses.

Brad Costanzo: But you can go buy the cars and the watches and all that other stuff, and that's a way to drain the account and it's completely empty. It's fun, but empty. But draining the account into illiquid but good investments, that's the best way to do it, because you're faking [01:07:30] this desperate motivation.

Speaking of money and whatnot, there was another book I read about a year ago, and it really was eye-opening. It's called Die With Zero. It's a fascinating book written by this guy who's a multi-millionaire investment trader. He goes, "This is an impossible goal. It's an impossible goal, but a worthwhile pursuit." But he says, "Most of us are trying to optimize for wealth." He goes, "I'm going to show you how to optimize for happiness."

But it's different than the YOLO mentality of just live every day like [01:08:00] it's your last and spend, spend, spend, because the one thing we don't know is when we're going to die, and nobody wants to outlive their money. So he shows you how to build a financial strategy for your life to where the goal is to run out of money when you die, without running out of money before you-

Sarah Jenkins: Before that.

Brad Costanzo: ... die, right? And he shows you how to structure certain things so that they're at least always paying you a certain amount no matter what. So you have that [01:08:30] thing, but then the rest of your money, a couple of the key concepts that he talks about is he goes, "Understand that there are many deaths that we have." So there was... And a big portion of your life was competitive bodybuilding. I'm assuming you're not competing bodybuilding right now, or maybe you are.

AJ Roberts: No, I'm back to powerlifting.

Sarah Jenkins: Yeah, he is.

AJ Roberts: Yeah, yeah.

Brad Costanzo: Powerlifting?

AJ Roberts: But no, no, but part of my life, that was the only thing that mattered.

Brad Costanzo: Right. But you're probably not going to... I don't know if you... Maybe you're going to try to break another world record, but probably not.

AJ Roberts: Probably not.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, probably not.

AJ Roberts: Get stronger.

Brad Costanzo: So that part of your life [01:09:00] is dead. That's dead and that's okay. If you're a big skier or snowboarder, there'll be a time where you've skied your last thing, and that's fine. But he goes, "Actually, take a time to look at the things you like to do and the things you're doing, and put the age range that I'm probably going to do this is this." It was the last day I stepped into a nightclub to go clubbing, right? It was your 20s or early 30s or something like that. But then we all kind of grew out of that.

And then there's a last day, a last time you're going to do this, but he goes, "Plan for these mini deaths. Most people [01:09:30] just save and put off the things they want to do until they're retired, and now they don't have the energy or the ability." Let's say they want to go travel around Europe. Well, they retire when they're 70, and then their body's broken down and they don't have the ability.

AJ Roberts: Or they're too bougie, and it's like they have to go stay in five star hotels, so, "Well, we can't afford this."

Brad Costanzo: Yeah.

AJ Roberts: Because now they're older and they're not going to put up... But when you're in your 20s, they-

Sarah Jenkins: 70-year-old hostel is non-existent.

AJ Roberts: ... go backpacking. Yeah, hostel. Stay in a hostel, they don't care. 20 bucks, here you go. As long as there's [01:10:00] a plank for me to sleep on.

Brad Costanzo: Well, and then they miss out on a whole aspect of the experience that they would've enjoyed at the time when they had it. But it was a really great book on getting certain perspectives on different time periods of your life.

And one of the other things I liked is he said... By the way, this is not for broke people. This is for people who are higher income earners. But he said, "Nobody that I know of decides when their peak wealth is." He goes, "You should. Let's just say you're worth $5 million, right? And [01:10:30] you're age 60. At that point, you might decide, 'This is the most money... I'm at my peak. I'm going to start drawing it down on stuff.' But decide when your peak is." Because if you know these are the things I kind of want to do in the next part of my life, and this is approximately how much it'll cost, and this is how much I'll live, you might realize that, "Oh man, I've got a lot left over." Well, instead of giving money to your kids when you die, how much money can I give to my kids when I die? Decide-

Sarah Jenkins: 11 million.

Brad Costanzo: Right, exactly. But decide-

Sarah Jenkins: Is the [01:11:00] IRS limit.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, exactly. Right? But then he goes, "I've decided that I'm going to give my kids their inheritance when they're alive, but they ain't getting all of daddy's money." An example would be... He goes, "My kids are," I think, "in their early 20s. By the time they're 30, when they're past the getting spoiled age or whatever, I'll give them each," I don't remember what it was, "a hundred thousand dollars each. I'm going to fund your business. I'm going to buy you a house. I'm going to do this. There's your inheritance. I'm going to get to see you enjoy it, and that's all you guys are getting. If there's leftover, you can have it, but don't [01:11:30] plan on it. Daddy's spending it." So they get set up in life.

Sarah Jenkins: That's what I have for my kids too.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah.

Sarah Jenkins: Milestones that I get to give it to them.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, exactly. And I love that.

AJ Roberts: [inaudible 01:11:40] they don't get it till they're 40. I was like, "I'm not creating lazy kids."

Brad Costanzo: No.

AJ Roberts: So they can know they're going to get money-

Sarah Jenkins: No, mine is I can turn it off any time.

AJ Roberts: They're going to get money someday, but they've got until 40. Because I figured by 40, if they haven't figured it out, they need some help. [inaudible 01:11:52].

Brad Costanzo: It could be investing in their business. It could be buying them a house.

Sarah Jenkins: Down payment on a house or something.

Brad Costanzo: Doing something of that nature. Don't necessarily just give them money and say, "Here, go run rampant."

AJ Roberts: [01:12:00] No. I think those things are awesome. Yeah.

Brad Costanzo: Right. But then he goes, "Now if you know, okay, I've taken care of my kids, I've taken care... Let's say you've got an annuity that's guaranteed to pay you out," I'm making this up, "$150,000 a year. I can live on that. Not necessarily the way I want, but I can live on that, especially when you're older. Okay, now I've got four and a half million dollars. Now it's time to start drawing it down. I'm going to do the things I want to do." And anyway, I could go on for a long time about this book. It made a big impact on me and the way I look at things. I'm like, "Okay, [01:12:30] cool." So there will be a time where I choose, "This is my peak wealth. These are the things I want to do at this time in my life," and I may not be doing these for too long.

AJ Roberts: I imagine it allows you to make decisions easier too, based on where you're at. You might have said yes 10 years ago, five years ago to a project, but now based on where you are, you're like, "Well, that doesn't fit what I'm trying to do, so no." Because you-

Sarah Jenkins: [inaudible 01:12:52], AJ.

AJ Roberts: Yes. It's not in my emotional budget.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

AJ Roberts: Cool. Any other questions you want to ask?

Sarah Jenkins: Oh man, that has [01:13:00] been fun though.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, it has.

AJ Roberts: Brad, where can people go to find more about you and everything you're up to?

Brad Costanzo: The easiest is bradcostanzo.com. There, you can get a link to Bacon Wrapped Business podcast.

Sarah Jenkins: Do you have bacon on every podcast?

Brad Costanzo: No.

Sarah Jenkins: You don't eat bacon on-

Brad Costanzo: I should be crunching it.

Sarah Jenkins: Well-

AJ Roberts: We need the whole studio bacon-

Sarah Jenkins: Now I don't want to see it.

AJ Roberts: Whole studio bacon-

Brad Costanzo: I know. I do have the intro of it has the sound of sizzling bacon. It's like... Then it goes-

Sarah Jenkins: I would like bacon right here, right now.

AJ Roberts: Sizzling secrets, that's why.

Brad Costanzo: [01:13:30] You know the subtitle is Sizzling Hot Business Advice Guaranteed to Make You Fat Profits.

Sarah Jenkins: I just want the fat.

Brad Costanzo: Exactly. The-

Sarah Jenkins: Fine. If I come on your podcast, there better be bacon.

Brad Costanzo: Yes. But it's a...

Sarah Jenkins: Very cool.

Brad Costanzo: Yeah, so bradcostanzo.com, they can get me. And if they want to email me, brad@bradcostanzo.com.

AJ Roberts: Perfect. Well, it's been a pleasure having you.

Brad Costanzo: Been a pleasure.

AJ Roberts: Guys, if you enjoyed this show, make sure you like, subscribe, leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you, and we'll see you on the next episode.

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