This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Jim Stoval. Jim is an icon. He’s shared the stage with everyone from Zig Ziglar to Tony Robbins. He’s the bestselling author of 30 books including The Ultimate Gift, The Ultimate Life and The Lamp which have been made into major motion pictures.

Jim has been a national champion Olympic weightlifter, the President of the Emmy Award-winning Narrative Television Network, and a highly sought after author and platform speaker. Steve Forbes said “Jim Stovall is one of the most extraordinary men of our era.”

You see, Jim is blind and he has shown through his life and work that no matter who you are or your situation, you can accomplish anything. In fact, for his work in making television accessible to our nation’s 13 million blind and visually impaired people, The President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity selected Jim Stovall as the Entrepreneur of the Year. He was also chosen as the International Humanitarian of the Year, joining Jimmy Carter, Nancy Reagan, and Mother Teresa as recipients of this honor.

It's truly an honor to have him on and I can’t wait to have him share his wisdom with you in this episode. ​

www.JimStoval.com

Jim was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma and still makes it his home. His businesses stretch across the world. He grew up with one ambition – to be an All-American football player and play in the NFL. He had the size and speed to do it and was heavily recruited and scouted. As such, he never cared about school or anything. He didn’t have a plan B.

Then one year, during a routine physical, he was diagnosed with a condition that would cause him to lose his sight. His dream to play in the NFL died and he was confronted with this massive problem that was a blessing in disguise.

Of all that you’ve done and learned on your journey, what have you found that truly matters?

• Jim has over 10 million copies of his books in print and the movies off them have grossed over $100 million.
• The story of the book and subsequent, the Ultimate Gift is what truly matters.
• The secret of life is to find our gift and then we achieve meaning when we share it and give it away.
• We achieve meaning when we truly serve humanity with that gift.
• So many people play the wrong game.
• You can go from world class to mediocre by playing the wrong game.

How does someone go about finding their gift or confirming they have found it?

• You must grow, advance and develop – otherwise, you are choosing only with the options you have currently.
• You start with what comes easy to you that everyone else seems to think is hard.
• You have to find what you enjoy doing and then find meaning with it and how it can matter in a larger way.
• And you need to be able to profit in it.
• You don’t “make money.” You “earn it.” And you earn money by creating value.
• Ask how you can serve more people and create more value – the money will follow if you can do that.

How do you see money?

• The big lie – If I have enough money, I wouldn’t have any more problems.
• Money doesn’t solve your problems; it makes you more of whatever you are.
• Valuables without values is like a loaded gun. Get and instill the right values before your get the money.
• Money is not a goal. It is a tool.
• We don’t want money, we want the things money will buy and we need to know what those are.
• Otherwise, we get caught up in the “disease of more,” where are never satisfied and “more” never comes.
• The disease of more is an empty pursuit.

At the 16 min mark, Jim talks about losing his sight and about changing your life by changing your mind…

• Jim made a bargain with God and challenged God.
• It all happened at a state fair. He saw an exhibition of weightlifting.
• And then went to a concert at fair without even looking who was playing.
• And then the announcer came out and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Ray Charles”
• In that moment, Jim found his message in the magic of seeing Ray Charles and realizing a blind guy could do something.
• That was the beginning and what put him on his path to be an Olympic weightlifter, his businesses, etc.

What have you learned about how to develop and winning and succeeding mindset?

• The magic words “Somebody ought to do something…”
• Those words are an idea.
• The world is weighting for a great idea and we trip over them multiple times a day.
• The have a great business, you need idea of “somebody ought to do something” and then ask, how can I help other people avoid that problem or issue or improve this situation for them.
• Care about others and solve their problems. It’s about them and not you. That is how you succeed.

What have you learned from your relationship with Steve Forbes?

• They met after Jim was chosen as Entrepreneur of the Year.
• Steve is a 3rd generation and handed the business built by his father and grandfather.
• He had a choice of growing it and taking to the next level or sitting on it. He did the former and has built it into the powerhouse it is today.
• It is different to take something successful and grow it and keep it successful, than to start from nothing and grow something. They are two different skill sets.

You’ve written 40 books, is there a favorite? If so why?

• The best book is Keeper of the Flame.
• The best-seller is the Ultimate Gift.
• They are all special in their own way, but the Ultimate Gift is in a league by itself. ​

What is Ultimate Productivity?

• Productivity is a matter of getting the most of what you put into something.
• It involves intensity and efficiency.
• It came out of a conversation with Steve Forbes.
• The biggest source of productivity knowledge came from John Wooden, who Jim spoke with weekly until his death.
• It comes down to how we motivate, communicate, and how we act.
• It is not about time; it is about results.
• The things you measure are the things that will move.
• Activity is not productivity. Don’t confuse them.
• The one commodity we don’t get any more of in life is time. Every day you should be doing something to get closer to your goal.
• The time to get in the game is today.

Jim and I continue a discussion on this and it’s best to listen at around the 32 min mark.

What would be your advice a young entrepreneur to succeed, not just in the beginning, but into the future?

• First, they need to understand what it is to be an entrepreneur.
• The name is overused.
• Entrepreneurs are the ones who do everything in our society. Everyone who is employed works for an entrepreneur.
• Everything invented, built, etc. started in the mind of an entrepreneur.
• Entrepreneurship is not for those that can be talked out of it.
• You have to be so committed and have deep passion for it.
• You must also realize that you have a lot of bosses as an entrepreneur – your customers are your boss and can fire you by voting with their dollars.
• Next, you must have serious delayed gratification. There are a lot of rules that have to be learned.
• Self-education is critical to succeed as you competing against the best.

Best Quote: You don’t “make money.” You “earn it.” And you earn money by creating value. The more value you create, the more you earn.

Jim's Misfit 3:

1. The biggest dream, you’ve ever had in your life is alive in you and well. The big scary dreams are real and hell is standing before your maker understanding what you could have done if you had gone after the dream that was inside of you. The question is not “can we,” but “will we.”
2. You will be the same person you are today 5 years from except for the books you read and the people you meet.
3. You change your life when you change your mind. Guard your mind and the input into it.

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Hello Misfit Nation! Welcome to another edition of "Lessons for Hannah!" In November of 2016, we introduced a new format that we are putting alongside our regular episodes called “Lessons for Hannah.” Hannah is my daughter and one of the main inspirations for the Misfit Entrepreneur. I wanted to have a place where she could go and learn from her daddy and his Misfit friends throughout her life….even after I am gone. If you haven’t listened to the first episode of "Lessons for Hannah," I urge you to as it gives some more background and tells the amazing story of how Hannah came to be in our lives.

"Lessons for Hannah" are short, very useful, and sometimes comical lessons, that I have learned which I want to share with you and give to Hannah to help in your lives. Because I want Hannah to have these for her life, I’m going to speak as though I am talking directly to her. These episodes are a lot of fun and if you think there is a lesson that we should include in these episodes, please don’t hesitate to send it over to us at support@misfitentrepreneur.com. We’d love to share it.

This week’s Lesson for Hannah

Hannah, ​

I want to talk to you about what makes a great friendship. We live in a time in which true friendships are rare. It’s seems that in the age of social media, you can be friends with someone one minute and then it disappears the next with one tweet, post, or view that is not the same. Things like social media and the instant world have made people more tribal and kept them from growing beyond a certain way of thinking or viewpoint and stifled being open and tolerant of others views. And in this world, true friendships become more and more rare.

You see, to have and build a true, life lasting friendship it takes work, commitment, a willingness to set aside each other’s faults and things you disagree with, and love. When I say love, I am not talking about romantic love, but a love and caring for your fellow man. An understand that everyone is different and won’t believe the same things – and that is OK. In fact, that is what makes life and friendship great. It saddens me that people don’t realize that they probably agree on 80% of more of things with others but let 1 or 2 differences keep them from having a friendship.

A great friendship has several elements at its core, and I want to go through them.

First, a great friendship has a deep commitment. A commitment to one another that you will care. A commitment that you can count on each other when in need. And a deep commitment to look out for each other and help each other – especially in the darkest times.

Second, a great friendship is built on trust. Trust that the other person will be honest and be there. Trust that you will not betray one another. And trust that, even in disagreement, the friendship will stand.

Third, a great friendship takes effort. In our world, it is very easy to neglect the effort part of friendship. In order to maintain a lasting friendship, you must make an effort to stay in touch, communicate regularly, and be there. I’m not talking about sending an email or a message through a social platform. I’m talking about taking time to get on the phone and have a great conversation. Scheduling time together, even if it is just a coffee. And showing genuine interest and care for the relationship, nurturing it over time.

And sometimes, it takes more effort from one side than the other. Sometimes, to be a great friend, you have to put in more of the work and effort to keep the friendship going. Sometimes, you have to speak hard truth and even act to help each other against what one may want. Think about someone who is an addict, whose true friends and family pull out all the stops to help them – even when they don’t think they need help.

True friends are always revealed in the darkest times. They will be there when you need them most. And in today’s world, as polarized as it is, true friends will remain friends even when they don’t disagree on things or have opposing views – because they know they AGREE on a hell of a lot more than they disagree on. They are not fickle.

For example, a true friend will not disown you for something like supporting a political candidate that they don’t. As we are in an election season, it’s amazing to see this happening all over the place and on places like social media – where people have been “friends” for years, but just because they disagree on a candidate, they are now sworn enemies. They were never friends to begin with.

Hannah, you will have friends come and go throughout your life, but there will be a few truly lasting friendships that you will find along the way. Cherish them. Commit to them. Trust in them. Put effort into them. These relationships are what make life so wonderful and exciting. Remember, in the end, all the money, possessions, and accolades mean nothing if you do not have those you truly love to enjoy and celebrate them with. Here’s to true, long-lasting friendships! ​

I love you,

Daddy

Best Quote: To have and build a true, life lasting friendship it takes work, commitment, a willingness to set aside each other’s faults and things you disagree with, and love.

Misfit 3:

1. True friendships are rare.
2. True friends are revealed in the darkest times.
3. The 3 elements of a great friendship are deep commitment, trust, and effort.

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This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Jeff Dudan. Where to start with Jeff? Jeff is the founder of a massive franchise, Advantaclean which he started in 1994, built it to over 240 locations in 37 states and exited just last year. He then went on to start Dudan Partners, a company that partners with clients to help them start new franchise businesses, grow existing ones, and invest in potential opportunities.

He is also a former D1 college football player, was featured on CBS’s Undercover Boss, a Forbes Contributor, speaker, consultant, and tireless advocate and supporter of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

And if that wasn’t enough, he went out and wrote a best-seller called Discernment, The Business Athlete’s Regimen for A Great Life Through Better Decisions and this is the major area I want to focus with him today – how our daily decisions as entrepreneurs make such an impact on us, not only now, but for our future. So, let’s jump in.

www.JeffDudan.com

Jeff has always been a Misfit. He grew up in Chicago and was a great athlete. He originally was basketball star, but found football and loved it. He walked on at University of Northern Iowa, but was a terrible student and after 1 year, could not make the grades. He went to a Junior College, got his grades up and went to play ball at Appalachian State. When he got there, he realized that he was interested in learning and there was a path for him. He started a painting business painting student housing to pay for college and by the time he graduated, it was doing so well, he didn’t need a job. Then, in 1992, a friend from south Florida called and asked if he would come down and work with a restoration company to help get things rebuilt.

He originally thought it would be 3 weeks, but it ended up being 3 years. He cut his teeth in the restoration business and ended partnered with a few others to create the business that would become Advantaclean in 1994. Over the next 10 years, they built out the business with locations across the south. Along the way, Jeff bought his partners. It was in 2005 that he was coming back from being on the road for Hurricane Katrina and drove through the night to make it to his son’s football game and had a realization that he could not continue being away and doing things like he was.

He realized that “Our true values are what we tolerate and must have.” He knew that building this business further would require him to be constantly on the road, so he decided to franchise. In 2005-2008, he sold all of the locations he currently owned as franchises and then in 2009, they launched to market and built it to over 200 locations in 37 states. Then in 2018, he sold the business in its entirety.

What are your values now in business and life?

• Your values are how you operate.
• Then need to be an authentic reflection of your true self and believes.
• Values are choosing.
• You want diversity in your business, but you don’t want diversity in your values.
• Your vision is the dream, then your mission is how you will do it, your values are your choosing – how you decide how you operate, hire, etc.
• Each business needs a value set that works for that business that everyone understands throughout the organization and honors them.
• There is not one set of values. There are personal ones and business ones, but they should and will overlap.

Define Discernment and explain why it is so important to understand…

• At the core – Discernment is a principled, effective, experience informed process for making decisions.
• There is never a 100% success rate with decisions.
• It is all about probabilities and the quality of the good decisions over time can be meteoric on your results.
• If you are business athlete meaning your are going to show up and put the work, you need to define the things you need to sturdy and continually refine to become a better athlete. Decision making is one of the big things.

Is there a process for how to make good decisions that consistently work?

• The first step is knowing your values and using them to aid in your decision making.
• Jeff looks at things like a personal balance sheet and at the 14:30 mark talks about this in detail. It’s best to listen.
• Everything you do as a leader creates a positive or a negative. They both go on your “balance sheet.”
• You have to control your inputs – the things that go in between your ears and through your eyes because they affect your outputs. Make sure your inputs are helping be the best in your outputs.

At the 18 min mark, Jeff talks discusses how he learned to understand the power of his mind and how to shape his thoughts.

• Sports and visualization helped him early on.
• Our brains like to take everything and put it into a pattern and routine.
• Changing these routines take a lot of brain power vs. just the automatic patterns of the subconscious.
• Be intentional about the changes you need to make is hard and if you don’t stick at it, you will revert back to the old pattern.
• Understanding that and looking for these patterns in our lives is critical to changing and growing.

How do we know we are making a good decision and are on the right track?

• You don’t. You just don’t.
• It can take a while to see if a decision was really good.
• We do the best we can and cannot criticize ourselves for taking action based on the best information available.
• People are the biggest variation. They are the X-factor. People create all the variation in our life and this where your gut, intuition, listening skills, and discernment comes in to help make the best decision.

Any daily habits people can practice to make the best decisions?

• Reading and personal growth helps you not only learn, but see others and how they handle problems/challenges and get inside an author’s head is a great way to develop yourself.
• Push yourself to be uncomfortable and get different perspectives. Don’t be afraid to put yourself in uncomfortable situations.
• You have to get out on the edge. If you aren’t, you are just taking up space.

What is advice your can give a 1st time franchise to help them be successful?

• No genius attacks for 12 months. Follow the plan.
• Franchises have a track record of success – you change and adapt to the model, don’t try to adapt it to you.
• One of the best reasons to franchise is to learn to be an entrepreneur with guardrails. Franchises allow you to put your entrepreneur toes in the water and learn following a system that is already developed and proven vs. having to do it on your own.
• Talk to a franchise consultant to help you if you needed.
• Make sure to leverage your passions into a business you would be proud to show up everyday.

Advice for someone thinking about franchising their business?

Do your homework.

• Franchise is a completely different business.
• It can be costly to get off the ground.
• You have to be incredibly responsible with the opportunity you are giving to people.
• At the end of the day, it is a people business. Your customers are now your franchisors and you need to develop them and help them to be successful.
• Franchise is also inverse to the general economy. When unemployment is up, more franchises are sold because people are not as secure in a job and look for something else.
• Crises accelerate trends. Franchise businesses during Covid have survived at much better rates than small businesses.

What are the most important things you learned in your sports career that translated well to entrepreneurship?

• Grit. How to persist. The ability to keep going and make it.
• Seek coaching. You’ll never push yourself as far as a coach will push you.
• Keep things simple. Simple metrics that can be measured make all the difference. 80/20 Rule.

Anything else to share?

• Entrepreneurship is something that everyone should think about and we are coming into a renaissance for it.
• Entrepreneurship will rebuild the middle class and grow it even larger.
• When it comes down to it, if you can’t figure out a good, solid reason to say know to entrepreneurship, then say “yes.”

Best Quote: Discernment is a principled, effective, experience informed process for making decisions...

Jeff's Misfit 3:

1. Half of life is showing up. Nothing great happens until you show up. How you show up matters, but just showing up is the first step.
2. You can make a decision today and have a different life tomorrow. It doesn’t happen overnight, but changes start to happen and the dream happens faster than you think.
3. The person who has the most to do with what happens to you is you. We are not victims unless we choose to be. There is nothing that can hold us back except us.

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This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Bill Flynn. Bill has over 30 years of experience working for and advising hundreds of companies, especially startups. After working for ten different high-tech startups in different market segments such as speech recognition, e-commerce, and affiliate marketing where he was a VP of Sales eight times, twice a CMO and once a GM of a division of a $100MM IT services company, he pivoted to becoming a business growth coach. He had five successful outcomes, two IPOs, and seven acquisitions, including a turnaround during the 2008 financial crisis.

Bill is the author of Further Faster, The Vital Few Steps That Take the Guesswork out of Growth. And he embodies them, everywhere he’s gone, he has been the key ingredient in the growth of the business. It’s probably, because he says, “Most business do just about everything wrong.” They do decision making wrong, hiring wrong, teams wrong, strategy wrong, and so on. In fact, a lot of it boils down to how we read and interpret people, which Bill has a gift for.

So, I brought him on the show to share his wisdom and lessons with you to help you in your life and business.

www.CatalystGrowthAdvisors.com

Bill started out in high tech through some family connections and spent a lot of time in startups, including the company who created Siri. He did 10 startups over 5 years including two that went public at well over a billion valuation. He was 5 for 10 in startups through the mid 2000’s and then got into coaching because he was forced to turn a failing company he was involved in around. He had to learn to lead and coach others to be leaders and succeed.

He put together his own system of running the business that worked well and became basis for him to coach other business owners on how to build a business. He really fell in love with helping business owners “figure it out” by working with leadership teams and take the guesswork out of growth.

What is neuro-leadership and why it is important?

• It is how to lead with brain in mind.
• Our brains have biases and you have to understand that we are all a little crazy.
• We are emotional, irrational, and we don’t also act in rational ways.
• As a leader, you must understand how the brain works, learns, takes feedback, etc. so you can coach through the biases that exist.

At the 10:30 mark, Bill talks about using this for sales and how the brain makes buying decisions – and how knowing this made him the top sales person and create top sales teams wherever he’s gone.

What are some of the basics people need to know and understand to start practicing neuroleadership?

• The brain is really a prediction engine as a way to survive. It must predict the future to keep itself safe and survive.
• Over 10’s of thousands of years, the brain has created short cuts to automatically discern if it is moving toward reward or away from threat.
• The brain has a 2x bias toward threat and is geared toward seeking reward.

At the 13 min mark, Bill gives a good example of reward vs. threat in the workplace and how it can impact people and leaders.

The model Bill uses is SCARF.

• Status
• Certainty
• Autonomy
• Relatedness
• Fairness
• 5x every second, our brain is looking out and also listening to the body perceiving threats and rewards.

Bill’s best tip for sales success:

• When trying to persuade or influence, before meeting them, sit down and identify the “Bully with the juice.”
• This person is the one that has the most influence in the room and they are the one you want to key on.
• As them what the best outcome from the meeting can be? Write it down, then acknowledge any others and get their feedback.
• Repeat back what they say they say and make sure it is captured right.
• Then tailor your presentation around what they told you – their ideas.
• Come back to it at the end and go down the list to make sure you covered everything they listed and offer any other feedback.
• In the end, it is very hard for people to say no to their own ideas.
• It is about them and not your product.

Thoughts on building a sales team/organization?

• As a sales manager, you have 3 things you need to do:
• Hiring for these 3 things:
  • Hire the best salesperson for the environment that you are in.
  • They need to be super curious and have an entrepreneurial drive.
  • They have to be compassionate = empathy with a bias to action
• Train, train, train.
• Learn how to build capacity.

Further Faster, Vital Steps to Growth…what should we know?

• Focus on team vs. individual or culture. The team is where everything happens. Teach your people to be good team leaders.
• You must build a set of systems to run your business. Strategy and execution are connected.
• Cash should be your primary growth metric. The business lives on cash, not “revenue.” Growth sucks cash and it is your lifeblood.

What is one thing every entrepreneur should do every day to help their success?

• There are 2 types of entrepreneurs, the startup founder and those that want to build and grow something.
• As a startup founder, do not fall in love with the idea, fall in love with the problem. Keep working at how to best solve the problem.
• For the entrepreneur that is growing and building – go back and revisit every key decision you made in the startup phase and make sure that is still true. Most often they are not. Going from $1 million to $50, $10, or $20 million require completely different skill sets. Make sure to keep your identity and don’t violate it.

“A plan is about doing, a strategy is about thinking,” what do you mean by that?

• The definition of strategy is different across the board for most business owners – but it should not be. Strategy is about choice.
• Strategy is figuring out the unique market position you want to have that helps you to have a predictable, profitable customer.
• You have to craft that, but remember, it about choice – and many times, it is not choosing what to do, but what not to do. Southwest Airlines is a good example of this.

Final thoughts?

If you are entrepreneur and struggling, it’s not your fault. We’ve never been taught to do this.

Running a company is a unique thing that you have to get better at by learning and growing over time.

Learn the science behind building a great company.

Best Quote: Few things matter in business or life, but those that do, matter tremendously...

Bill's Misfit 3:

1. There is a huge gap between what science knows and business does. A survey is not a study, a study is not research, and research is not science. Science is when people look at problem objectively and experiment and solve the problem. The good news is that for entrepreneurs, many have already done this. Go self-educate.
2. Few things truly matter in business or life. But, those that do, matter tremendously. Relentlessly focus on those things.
3. Most businesses struggle on force of will, luck, effort, and timing. Don’t do that. Figure out how to fire yourself, so you spend more and more time thinking about how to create the future of your business and yourself.

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