152. How to Pivot From Broke Employee to Successful Entrepreneur by Taking Control of Your Time, Money and Work and Have A Life of Freedom with Vincent Pugliese from TotalLifeFreedom.com.

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In Episode 152 of the Beyond Adversity Podcast Vincent Pugliese returns to visit with Dr. Brad Miller in a conversation about the mindset pivot needed to transition from broke employee to successful entrepreneur and the continued adjustment needed when confronted by adversity like the covid 19 pandemic.

Vincent Pugliese is the founder of the Total Life Freedom Community. Living a life of freedom is of huge importance to Vincent and his wife Elizabeth. They homeschool their three boys and believe that having control of your time, your money, and the work you do, leads to the ultimate life freedom. While teaching others to do the same, the movement of Total Life Freedom was born. 

In their conversation, Vincent shares the particular actions that he took in his business when confronted by a dramatic drop in clients at the outset of the pandemic and how preparations and taking personal control of every aspect of their lives meant that his business was not devastated by the actions of others outside of his control.

For Vincent, the most important action that he took was to continue to be generous in the face of adversity and not succumb to any temptation to withdraw to any selfish goals. Indeed, Vincent shared, in-depth with Dr. Brad that for him all success comes down to gratitude and helpfulness and how to have generous not selfish goals. A generous goal is how do I help someone else do something without regard to any immediate selfish goals. He lives this out by adhering to the discipline of spending the first hour of each day contacting people to see how he can be helpful to them, this is the key to the Total Life Freedom lifestyle.

The Beyond Adversity Podcast is published weekly by Dr. Brad Miller at DrBradMiller.com and on all the major podcast directories. The purpose of The Beyond Adversity Podcast is to help people to navigate adverse life events and to emerge to a promised life of peace, prosperity, and purpose.

Vincent Pugliese’s The Total Life Freedom community includes coaching, consulting, masterminds, books, and the Total Life Freedom Podcast live at TotalLifeFreedom.com.

Vincent Pugliese

https://totallifefreedom.com/

Transcript
Brad Miller:

Dr. Brad Miller here on beyond adversity the

Brad Miller:

podcast where we look to help you to navigate adverse

Brad Miller:

conditions in your life to achieve your life, peace,

Brad Miller:

prosperity, and purpose. And I love to talk to leaders who have

Brad Miller:

overcome adversity themselves and has success, and also are

Brad Miller:

facing whatever problems and issues they have out there they

Brad Miller:

may where life is thrown a curveball at them. And they've

Brad Miller:

done that. And when our guest today is that's a puglisi. And I

Brad Miller:

was had the good fortune of talking him to some time ago,

Brad Miller:

prior to the situation in March of 2020, when the world kind of

Brad Miller:

came crashing down with with the COVID-19 virus and all the other

Brad Miller:

issues that happen in our world, subsequently, of businesses

Brad Miller:

collapsing of health systems being stretched, of racial

Brad Miller:

tension, political unrest, all kinds of all kinds of things

Brad Miller:

that are going on. But I'd be interested in talking to Vince

Brad Miller:

today about how he handled all that how he did in his business,

Brad Miller:

and a little bit about his life. So Vince, Welcome to Beyond

Brad Miller:

adversity, my friend.

Vincent Pugliese:

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Thank you

Vincent Pugliese:

so much for having me again. It was so much fun last time. So

Vincent Pugliese:

this is I'm excited about this.

Brad Miller:

Well, it is awesome to have you on and we have some

Brad Miller:

background from a town we both lived in for a while Evansville,

Brad Miller:

Indiana, and we enjoy talking about that a little bit. Yeah,

Brad Miller:

let's talk a little bit just to get our listeners refreshed a

Brad Miller:

little bit. At one time you were a photographer for a newspaper,

Brad Miller:

and evolve. Now you have a very active website. With coaching

Brad Miller:

and a great podcast, your your blog is total life, freedom

Brad Miller:

calm. You have membership sites, masterminds and coaching and all

Brad Miller:

kinds of good stuff there. And you've built a business there.

Brad Miller:

So give us a little bit of background there first, and then

Brad Miller:

we'll jump into situation at hand right now.

Vincent Pugliese:

Yeah, thank you. I was a photographer for 23

Vincent Pugliese:

years. That was my life I was I was a journalist I was we became

Vincent Pugliese:

wedding photographers, work in Evansville, the courier and

Vincent Pugliese:

press for 10 years as a staff photographer there. But at some

Vincent Pugliese:

point, I'm not. And I look back on it, and I think oh my

Vincent Pugliese:

goodness, I'm so glad we took some action on something. This

Vincent Pugliese:

is where I think a lot of people can maybe get help from where

Vincent Pugliese:

they're at right now. We were dissatisfied with where we're

Vincent Pugliese:

at, even though it was the career that we thought we

Vincent Pugliese:

wanted. And I had done it for so long. And I remember

Vincent Pugliese:

photographing a wedding and coming home that night after

Vincent Pugliese:

some drunk guy just harassed me, like 1030 at night, I'm

Vincent Pugliese:

photographing the reception. Just give me a hard time. And

Vincent Pugliese:

then you go through this enough times, and the money was good.

Vincent Pugliese:

It was a good business. And it gave us a lot of freedom. But I

Vincent Pugliese:

came home and I said to Elizabeth I got I was getting

Vincent Pugliese:

ready for bed. I said, I am done photographing drunk people

Vincent Pugliese:

dancing at 1030 at night, I'm done. And, and she looked at me

Vincent Pugliese:

and this is you know, it was amazing. I have a great spouse.

Vincent Pugliese:

She was like, okay, and this, you know, he was a six figure

Vincent Pugliese:

business we've had for 12 years, it became more and more

Vincent Pugliese:

optimized where we could do this at 20 weddings a year even less.

Vincent Pugliese:

money wasn't a problem. Time wasn't a problem, but I was

Vincent Pugliese:

feeling dissatisfied. And she's like, what are we gonna do if we

Vincent Pugliese:

do that? Because we wouldn't happen immediately. But she

Vincent Pugliese:

knows once I check out, I check out I will move on. I said,

Vincent Pugliese:

Well, I've been coaching photographers on how to run a

Vincent Pugliese:

business because so many photographers are great at

Vincent Pugliese:

photography, but they're terrible at business. They're

Vincent Pugliese:

good artists are the great artists, but they don't want to

Vincent Pugliese:

learn the business side or they're not good. So there's a

Vincent Pugliese:

lot of that's what the whole starving artist thing comes

Vincent Pugliese:

from. They're great at their art, but they don't make money

Vincent Pugliese:

at it. So like I was coaching, you know, photographers build a

Vincent Pugliese:

better business. And I was like, I think we could do something

Vincent Pugliese:

with this. And I love the conversation. I was tired of

Vincent Pugliese:

being a vendor. I was behind the camera, but nobody asked for my

Vincent Pugliese:

opinion. I'm an Italian New Yorker, I like to talk. I like

Vincent Pugliese:

to have conversations. And that obviously to me, I'm like,

Vincent Pugliese:

there's something missing in my career, my life. I want to be

Vincent Pugliese:

able to help people in this way I want to be able to have

Vincent Pugliese:

conversation I said to her, I said, If I could find a way to

Vincent Pugliese:

have conversations for a living met you got That's it. That's

Vincent Pugliese:

it, I can. I didn't know what that was. I had no idea what

Vincent Pugliese:

that would be. But once you start thinking about something

Vincent Pugliese:

you start really diving in. So that led to coaching and then a

Vincent Pugliese:

more specific coaching and I developed the style a little bit

Vincent Pugliese:

more Rosalyn more brash, a little more bold, I was a little

Vincent Pugliese:

more assertive, I was challenging. I would I would

Vincent Pugliese:

force people to think differently and then to take

Vincent Pugliese:

action. And it was a different type of coach, I didn't go to

Vincent Pugliese:

any type of certification. It was just a way that I've been

Vincent Pugliese:

able to guide other people in a certain direction. And that kind

Vincent Pugliese:

of took off to where go from one on one coaching people start

Vincent Pugliese:

asking, you know, you raise your prices. So like, Okay, well, if

Vincent Pugliese:

we create a membership site or a mastermind, I can help more than

Vincent Pugliese:

one person at once, as opposed to, you know, I get on the phone

Vincent Pugliese:

with you for an hour. That's one hour of my time for one person.

Vincent Pugliese:

What if I get in that call for an hour and I can help 20

Vincent Pugliese:

people? That's where it kind of developed to. And then it went

Vincent Pugliese:

in? Yes. As you dive in. You keep going. I wrote a book

Vincent Pugliese:

called freelance to freedom, which I think we talked about,

Vincent Pugliese:

and that really helped. And then that all of a sudden with all

Vincent Pugliese:

this momentum you Got masterminds, which are higher

Vincent Pugliese:

level higher price, and then you have a community that's a mid

Vincent Pugliese:

level price. And then even a foundation, which is content. So

Vincent Pugliese:

the content that goes into the community, we pull out, and we

Vincent Pugliese:

do courses, and that goes into the lower price. So these are

Vincent Pugliese:

all things I've learned along the way, the 8020 rule, so you

Vincent Pugliese:

can have a low price $30 offer a mid price $150 off and then a

Vincent Pugliese:

higher price $500 offer which keeps going up. So that was the

Vincent Pugliese:

type of thing that developed from this. And that's been the

Vincent Pugliese:

last couple of years. It's really only been two or three

Vincent Pugliese:

years that has happened. So that all started to elevate and grow

Vincent Pugliese:

with the podcast and podcast guesting when COVID happened

Vincent Pugliese:

where so when that all

Brad Miller:

happened, you know, so you already had Foundation,

Brad Miller:

you already built a business out of the other pain. Yep. That you

Brad Miller:

had previously out of the old career that you had as a

Brad Miller:

photographer and able to transition that. So how did that

Brad Miller:

prepare you if at all, for when the COVID we

Vincent Pugliese:

we hunkered down, but you could see it like

Vincent Pugliese:

everybody could see like, Oh crap, this is something's

Vincent Pugliese:

happened here. And I remember we were we so we leave every

Vincent Pugliese:

winter. Right now. We're in Florida, we leave. And we

Vincent Pugliese:

travel, we homeschool our kids. So one of the things one of the

Vincent Pugliese:

core things we wanted was leave, we're in Pennsylvania, and like

Vincent Pugliese:

we want to leave Pennsylvania for the we don't want to move.

Vincent Pugliese:

We want to be able to so we leave three or four months at a

Vincent Pugliese:

time we travel around, we homeschool and we work from

Vincent Pugliese:

home, we could do whatever we want. So we were in Hilton Head

Vincent Pugliese:

last March. So let's find we pulled into Hilton Head March 1,

Vincent Pugliese:

the world was normal. When we pulled out April 1. We didn't

Vincent Pugliese:

recognize the world.

Brad Miller:

Yeah. That well, that month of March was the

Brad Miller:

pivotal time, wasn't it my unreal? So for those who were

Brad Miller:

not prepared at all, disaster,

Vincent Pugliese:

disaster, yeah. So what happened was, when

Vincent Pugliese:

it first happened, we're okay, prepare yourself, we're gonna

Vincent Pugliese:

have a lot of cancellations, we're gonna have a lot of

Vincent Pugliese:

cancellations of the different levels of what we do, you just

Vincent Pugliese:

know what's going to happen. Because people are gonna start

Vincent Pugliese:

getting bigger, they're gonna start losing income. It was

Vincent Pugliese:

really, you know, like Brace for impact type of thing. And so

Vincent Pugliese:

immediately, we weren't like hitting the clouds, you know,

Vincent Pugliese:

it's gonna be fine. We're like, this is the first thing that

Vincent Pugliese:

really, really could hit. So we brace for it. So what we started

Vincent Pugliese:

doing is we started within our mastermind, our community, we

Vincent Pugliese:

started doing like weekend calls, which we never do. And we

Vincent Pugliese:

I'm trying to think what we call it, we call it Corona pocalypse.

Vincent Pugliese:

Like, let's have a little fun with this.

Brad Miller:

I love it. That's great Khurana pocalypse Okay,

Brad Miller:

world's coming to an end. And let's party, let's talk about

Brad Miller:

it. Let's have let's Yeah, we're

Vincent Pugliese:

not gonna, we're not gonna stress about it.

Vincent Pugliese:

What we're gonna do is we're gonna get on here, and we're

Vincent Pugliese:

gonna figure out solutions. Yeah, so those were our highest

Vincent Pugliese:

attended calls. And they were on Saturdays, which normally, it

Vincent Pugliese:

was just as open on his raw raw conversation. And then ideas

Vincent Pugliese:

were coming from it. And people that were really worried, came

Vincent Pugliese:

up with different things that they could do that they hadn't

Vincent Pugliese:

done before, like, oh, that really can try and they started

Vincent Pugliese:

earning income from it. And then it was just really, you know, we

Vincent Pugliese:

can go deeper into March. But what really happened was, by

Vincent Pugliese:

May, we went two months without one cancellation. And normally

Vincent Pugliese:

they'll be there'll be two or three normally every month.

Brad Miller:

Okay, so asking how that compares to this kind of

Brad Miller:

help. Life went prior, it was more or less the same. It was

Brad Miller:

less or better, it was better. In one sense.

Vincent Pugliese:

It was better, we had none in May, I'm sorry,

Vincent Pugliese:

none of March, and April. And I'm like, maybe it was the

Vincent Pugliese:

community. Maybe it was the camaraderie maybe it was the

Vincent Pugliese:

support that they had that they realized, oh, my goodness, I've

Vincent Pugliese:

been paying for this. But this is more valuable than I

Vincent Pugliese:

realized. Because I had these people,

Brad Miller:

you might say, Vince, even about how many

Brad Miller:

members you had, you know, kind of what the attrition rate was

Brad Miller:

this type and we

Vincent Pugliese:

have 100 people in our community, and I

Vincent Pugliese:

keep it no more than that. Okay, cuz I've been in the communities

Vincent Pugliese:

that are really large. Okay, so good

Brad Miller:

that that's, that's a teaching moment as well, for

Brad Miller:

me. And I think for some of our listeners, that you can build up

Brad Miller:

a, you don't have to have 5000 people in a community, you know,

Brad Miller:

to make it work for you can have 100, or whatever it would be and

Brad Miller:

make it work. And even with your attrition rates that you

Brad Miller:

mentioned before, you can still make it work. For

Vincent Pugliese:

us. It's so much better. It was literally

Vincent Pugliese:

our plan wasn't you know, I see everybody going big, big, big,

Vincent Pugliese:

big, big and I am I'm a Seth Godin guy, I'm like smallest

Vincent Pugliese:

viable audience, do the best you can for the smallest amount

Vincent Pugliese:

possible. So I said what kind of community but I want, I would

Vincent Pugliese:

want a community that is diverse enough. So we have podcasters,

Vincent Pugliese:

membership people, we have real estate people, everybody looking

Vincent Pugliese:

for freedom. We have all SEO experts, we have tax people,

Vincent Pugliese:

anybody can help any of those. I'm building a team as the way

Vincent Pugliese:

that I look at it. You know, like, before the Patriots were

Vincent Pugliese:

not as great. I'm like, you don't just get to be on the

Vincent Pugliese:

Patriots. And there's a reason why, you know, if you're not

Vincent Pugliese:

doing the work, I will ask you to leave, because we have

Vincent Pugliese:

certain spots, and we want people to participate and be

Vincent Pugliese:

item to be helpful to be generous, which is the key. So

Vincent Pugliese:

we've built this generous committee that people are

Vincent Pugliese:

listening to each other's podcast, they're there, they're

Vincent Pugliese:

connected to other people. They're forming this bond

Vincent Pugliese:

together. And if it was 500 people you wouldn't have that

Vincent Pugliese:

and I'm not down on 500 people memberships or 5000 people,

Vincent Pugliese:

right but what I wanted was

Brad Miller:

what would I want to be a part of At least two

Brad Miller:

things here already, then. So one is just taking action, you

Brad Miller:

know, one is just have a bias towards action. And the second

Brad Miller:

thing, having some standards, some, some parameters that

Brad Miller:

you're not within a quality control, if you will. But keep

Brad Miller:

going, I kind of feel there's some other things here, they're

Brad Miller:

going to be teaching moments for us about how we understand how

Brad Miller:

you handle all this.

Vincent Pugliese:

So so the elite masterminds is eight

Vincent Pugliese:

people in each, there's two of those as 100 people in the

Vincent Pugliese:

community. And then we have the Foundation, which anybody can,

Vincent Pugliese:

you know, there's no community about what that's just content.

Vincent Pugliese:

So the numbers can be whatever they want to be. And there's

Vincent Pugliese:

that there's not a, any limit to that. So we so we built that

Vincent Pugliese:

out. So to the 100 person, community, it really it, it was

Vincent Pugliese:

a bond. So they they connected with each other more. So nobody

Vincent Pugliese:

was leaving, they were all building out from it. And so my

Vincent Pugliese:

story would COVID was weird, because every month just kept

Vincent Pugliese:

improving. It kept getting better. And I kept waiting for

Vincent Pugliese:

the other shoe to drop. And what I realized, and what I think

Vincent Pugliese:

might help you and your listeners is it all came from

Vincent Pugliese:

what happened before it. So everybody's like, oh, you're

Vincent Pugliese:

fortunate and we are fortunate. But you know, I

Brad Miller:

guess fortunate cuz you prepared

Vincent Pugliese:

it. That's the main thing. It wasn't we didn't

Vincent Pugliese:

build this thing in 2020. And we didn't build it as something

Vincent Pugliese:

that like, Oh, I gotta get money. Now. It was a vision of

Vincent Pugliese:

what we wanted, I wanted to create the community that I

Vincent Pugliese:

couldn't find. That was the vision for it. And it doesn't

Vincent Pugliese:

have to be I'm not a rock star. I'm not the one that everyone's

Vincent Pugliese:

coming to. I like being under the radar. It's who I like to

Vincent Pugliese:

be, I like to be a hidden gem. And I don't think enough people

Vincent Pugliese:

want to be a hidden gem. Because when people find you, we were

Vincent Pugliese:

the same way in photography, we didn't advertise, we weren't on

Vincent Pugliese:

all the different boards, we just think we thought we did the

Vincent Pugliese:

best work for anybody that we could do. And they talk about

Vincent Pugliese:

you. So beforehand,

Brad Miller:

of course word of mouth is the best really true

Brad Miller:

advertise any because that's where it comes with the value so

Vincent Pugliese:

so you can eliminate so much the other

Vincent Pugliese:

garbage by just focusing on taking care of your clients make

Vincent Pugliese:

sure they get the better end of the deal. There's not much more

Vincent Pugliese:

you need to do now there's details and all along the way.

Vincent Pugliese:

But that's a core premise. But for us was even from way back

Vincent Pugliese:

was we always pretended like it was gonna go away. We always

Vincent Pugliese:

pretended like there would be a 2020 not knowing what 2020 would

Vincent Pugliese:

be. So every year along the way, as opposed to like, Oh, you

Vincent Pugliese:

know, we made this much money next year, we're gonna make that

Vincent Pugliese:

much money. I'm negative in a lot of ways. I'm I'm cynical in

Vincent Pugliese:

a lot of ways. And every time it would happen, I'd be like, it's

Vincent Pugliese:

probably the best year we're ever going to happen. We better

Vincent Pugliese:

financially prepare, we better business wise, prepare.

Brad Miller:

So so you saved money you invested and you did

Brad Miller:

other preparations that helped you weather this Oh, we're the

Brad Miller:

key

Vincent Pugliese:

was first things first get rid of debt. I

Vincent Pugliese:

don't want any debt, my life. When I don't have debt in my

Vincent Pugliese:

life, it changes the decisions I make in business, it changes my

Vincent Pugliese:

desperation mode, with no debt and money in the bank and

Vincent Pugliese:

investments. If I lose clients, and those clients, I say all the

Vincent Pugliese:

time, I'm like, there's part of me that wants the whole thing to

Vincent Pugliese:

go away. Like literally everybody fired me today.

Vincent Pugliese:

Because there's nothing exciting about that. They're like, Okay,

Vincent Pugliese:

what am I gonna start next,

Brad Miller:

okay, now. Love it, love it, build something new.

Brad Miller:

But what you're saying is, you know, that's, that's the kind of

Brad Miller:

thing that scares so many people to death, it's the security of

Brad Miller:

whatever job or situation they are in that they are just or you

Brad Miller:

know, and a lot of times is tied up to the pension plan and the

Brad Miller:

health insurance and all that kind of Yeah, and but you what

Brad Miller:

you're teaching me, I don't want any teaching our audiences that

Brad Miller:

true security is not necessarily wrapped up in that type of

Brad Miller:

thing.

Vincent Pugliese:

I don't want any of it that to me, those are

Vincent Pugliese:

chains. My friend Chad Jeffers, a guitar player for Carrie

Vincent Pugliese:

Underwood. And he had a great story where he said he wanted to

Vincent Pugliese:

make music. And his dad said, if you want to make music, if you

Vincent Pugliese:

really want to make it, do not get a job with benefits, because

Vincent Pugliese:

you will never do the work that it takes to get there. We never

Vincent Pugliese:

did. And once up on stage and for 80,000 people. So to me, it

Vincent Pugliese:

was like I don't want any of those traps. I want freedom. I

Vincent Pugliese:

want to make my own decisions. And I don't want stress about

Vincent Pugliese:

money. Now, I don't care about being a multimillionaire, I

Vincent Pugliese:

don't care about that. You know, along the way, we've built a six

Vincent Pugliese:

figure net worth a seven figure net worth from that, but I don't

Vincent Pugliese:

care. What I care about is freedom. What I care about is

Vincent Pugliese:

not worry, I wake up in the morning, not worry about money

Vincent Pugliese:

and do the work that I love doing for my people.

Brad Miller:

And I forget what they are right now events, and

Brad Miller:

you probably get away with this. But there are actually formulas

Brad Miller:

that economists and so on have come up with about a certain

Brad Miller:

income level that most people can live comfortably at, you

Brad Miller:

know, pay to just, you know, pay off most of the debt, maybe have

Brad Miller:

a mortgage and car payment that you know, whatever manageable

Brad Miller:

stuff. That would be I don't know what that is. But certainly

Brad Miller:

it's not, you know, it's way beyond or it's way within the

Brad Miller:

framework of where many people think about me on airs standard

Brad Miller:

up, you could live pretty comfortably and way less than a

Brad Miller:

millionaire.

Vincent Pugliese:

And diamond is control. It's just freedom. It's

Vincent Pugliese:

like that. I think so many people focus on the billionaires

Vincent Pugliese:

and in the biggest names. And they're a they're unrelatable

Vincent Pugliese:

because a lot of them hit something JOHN Lee Dumas says he

Vincent Pugliese:

goes, he was just the first either be first to be different

Vincent Pugliese:

he was first Entrepreneur on Fire, and it blew up. Most

Vincent Pugliese:

people aren't going to do that. But when, if you can, like I

Vincent Pugliese:

just did a podcast two days ago about the financial sweetspot,

Vincent Pugliese:

which is like if you can make between 125 and $200,000 as an

Vincent Pugliese:

entrepreneur, and you get to reduce your taxable income with

Vincent Pugliese:

the things that you spend, right. So for me, I can my

Vincent Pugliese:

investments, investing my business conferences,

Vincent Pugliese:

masterminds, anything, read, make the money, reduce my

Vincent Pugliese:

taxable income on things that grow my business and grow my

Vincent Pugliese:

wealth. Meanwhile, my taxable income keeps going down. When I

Vincent Pugliese:

pay taxes, it's not very much, and it's all legal. And it's all

Vincent Pugliese:

written the way it is. But entrepreneur, employees can't do

Vincent Pugliese:

that. Your employees are taxed on the money that they make. So

Vincent Pugliese:

they pay so every year we get 10s of $1,000 that nobody else

Vincent Pugliese:

gets, because we get that and, and invest

Brad Miller:

in our business and what you're teaching me here.

Brad Miller:

Vance is something else. One of the key concepts I like to teach

Brad Miller:

about is discipline. And that can be disciplined in your

Brad Miller:

health career or in your you know, in your spiritual life or

Brad Miller:

your marriage, anything, anything you want in life, but

Brad Miller:

also can be in your financial picture, what I'd say is take

Brad Miller:

control of those areas. And I know that's a real theme, you

Brad Miller:

have to take control of your work of your money of your time.

Brad Miller:

Yep, take take control there. And that's awesome. So what do

Brad Miller:

we do, though? I know you have masterminds you work with and I

Brad Miller:

don't know if everyone you work with his men as well, parrot is

Brad Miller:

you have shared here. But a lot of people have it. Yeah. As well

Brad Miller:

prepared as you. Yeah, here and here. And that is like for you

Brad Miller:

to speak. That's to those folks for a minute about how, okay,

Brad Miller:

what are you doing? You mentioned algo phrases, in a way

Brad Miller:

you kind of like everything to go away. So you held something

Brad Miller:

up? That's your DNA. Yeah. But help us to speak to lives, maybe

Brad Miller:

people who are a little scared right now or a little, life's

Brad Miller:

kind of tough on them, you know, and that type of thing. speak to

Brad Miller:

them right now, if you can.

Vincent Pugliese:

Yeah, cuz? That's a great question. Because

Vincent Pugliese:

I think a lot of people I think, emotionally get beaten down by

Vincent Pugliese:

the situation they're in at the moment, as opposed to thinking,

Vincent Pugliese:

What's life gonna be like, 10 years now. Because we were

Vincent Pugliese:

there. We were there making no money. I mean, we were you know,

Vincent Pugliese:

my story in my book was I was making $32,000 a year my wife

Vincent Pugliese:

was leaving her job, because our oldest son who's 15, now is

Vincent Pugliese:

being born. And I got a 3% raise. And I was a top

Vincent Pugliese:

photographer in the country, right. 30, making

Brad Miller:

America you had some national awards? And yeah,

Brad Miller:

stay tuned.

Vincent Pugliese:

Yeah, $15 an hour, and I'm getting a 3%

Vincent Pugliese:

raise. So I was with no money in the bank, I was there. And

Vincent Pugliese:

looking back, I'm glad we didn't make desperate decisions. But

Vincent Pugliese:

I'm glad we took action, we basically said, we're going to

Vincent Pugliese:

take control of our destiny. And what that meant was starting our

Vincent Pugliese:

own business, because if you start your own business, you

Vincent Pugliese:

have control over everything. Nobody's gonna care about as

Vincent Pugliese:

much as you are. And and when you say that a lot of people are

Vincent Pugliese:

struggling. Generally, when I talk to people, the ones that

Vincent Pugliese:

are struggling, are more the ones that have jobs and are

Vincent Pugliese:

looking for jobs, as opposed to those have businesses are

Vincent Pugliese:

looking to build a business.

Brad Miller:

And they're looking at the job to replace the job.

Brad Miller:

They lost. Exactly, or something happened. They were downsized,

Brad Miller:

or,

Vincent Pugliese:

and I challenging whatever I challenge

Vincent Pugliese:

you. Yeah, I challenge the entire premise. Stop looking for

Vincent Pugliese:

another job is my opinion.

Brad Miller:

Because the job if I'm hearing exactly what you're

Brad Miller:

saying, can lead to complacency. And complacency would be the

Brad Miller:

enemy of building your freedom wouldn't Yeah,

Vincent Pugliese:

well, firstly, don't control your time, you

Vincent Pugliese:

don't control the work that you do. And you don't control your

Vincent Pugliese:

income. So like with me, I kind of did everything I could to be

Vincent Pugliese:

the best. And they couldn't compensate me for it. And then I

Vincent Pugliese:

just accepted that and sort of the entire newsroom. So you just

Vincent Pugliese:

you're in an environment of people that accept that. Yeah,

Vincent Pugliese:

in our world, we're not in that environment. We're in the

Vincent Pugliese:

environment where you can double your income this year or more.

Vincent Pugliese:

That's a

Brad Miller:

completely different affair. The fear

Brad Miller:

people have who are in that complacent workaday world is

Brad Miller:

that you also may not double this year, you may have nothing

Brad Miller:

as well, that's what they're fearful of,

Vincent Pugliese:

of course, and that's the challenge

Unknown:

and

Brad Miller:

it and it does occasionally happen that way.

Vincent Pugliese:

It does. But I did a show this morning, it was

Vincent Pugliese:

it was essentially about this where it's like you're more

Vincent Pugliese:

valuable than you think you are.

Brad Miller:

Because no matter where it goes to mindset and

Brad Miller:

that goes to the emotional piece of this. And it goes

Vincent Pugliese:

to the economics of business to where

Vincent Pugliese:

if you get hired for $60,000 at the University of Evansville as

Vincent Pugliese:

a professor, right, you're not worth $60,000 otherwise they

Vincent Pugliese:

wouldn't hire you. Why hire somebody for $60,000 when

Vincent Pugliese:

they're only gonna bring in $60,000. I've talked to enough

Vincent Pugliese:

business owners that hire enough people that know you better

Vincent Pugliese:

bring in three to five times the value with your position for me

Vincent Pugliese:

to hire you. Yes. So if that's the case, you're worth $300,000.

Vincent Pugliese:

Yeah, right. Well, you could say, well, I wouldn't get the

Vincent Pugliese:

same Clients are the same, because I got the university

Vincent Pugliese:

behind me. But say you're half as good. That's $150,000 say you

Vincent Pugliese:

screw up a bunch along the way and lose another 30 grand for

Vincent Pugliese:

120 grand, it's still twice as much as you make. It's still you

Vincent Pugliese:

controlling your income to growth, and you get all the tax

Vincent Pugliese:

benefits of being self employed. I don't get the mindset of

Vincent Pugliese:

employment. I don't understand it. I should have been born in

Vincent Pugliese:

1840. When there were no employees, when everybody had

Vincent Pugliese:

their own business, I don't understand why people want jobs.

Vincent Pugliese:

When it comes to money and freedom. It makes no sense to

Vincent Pugliese:

me. Um,

Brad Miller:

yeah, well, plus, the reality is and what happened

Brad Miller:

with the COVID crisis? And what even happened before that is

Brad Miller:

those expectations people even had in those environments. So

Brad Miller:

getting a, you know, 357 percent raise each other those went

Brad Miller:

away. Just to use the example at college, my alma mater, and

Brad Miller:

pleasure from our with university. I was with a big

Brad Miller:

controversy going on there right now, because the faculty has not

Brad Miller:

received a raise of any kind for three or four years. Yep, you

Brad Miller:

know, so what's the point in a way?

Vincent Pugliese:

And so then what happens is when you're not

Vincent Pugliese:

getting compensated, there's resentment that comes with that.

Vincent Pugliese:

Yeah, I really, am I really gonna try that hard. Am I going

Vincent Pugliese:

to come in any earlier Am I going to put my so guess what

Vincent Pugliese:

that becomes your work ethic? Yeah, my work ethic cannot slow

Vincent Pugliese:

down because I will be fired tomorrow. But you get stuck at

Vincent Pugliese:

Malays and mediocrity. That's what I like to call this, it's

Brad Miller:

a great term duck, you get stuck there, in order to

Brad Miller:

break out you've got to break out, you've got to, you know,

Brad Miller:

really take the matters into your hands. And this is a, you

Brad Miller:

know, it is a matter of taking action, like you said, it's also

Brad Miller:

a emotional thing, I believe is a belief. It's a spiritual thing

Brad Miller:

from my own perspective. And it's also a matter of

Brad Miller:

discipline, and and you've done a great job with that. And so I

Brad Miller:

just think there's something that I believe the you know, I

Brad Miller:

heard it said here recently, Vince, and I'd like your take on

Brad Miller:

this that, you know, we've got a lot of, you know, the COVID

Brad Miller:

crisis exaggerated a whole lot of other things racial,

Brad Miller:

economic, political. I mean, there are everywhere halls,

Brad Miller:

there are disasters everywhere you go. But I heard someone say

Brad Miller:

that it was going to take entrepreneurs in order to really

Brad Miller:

pull us out of this. And I've given that a lot of thought that

Brad Miller:

entrepreneurial mindset is going to what's going to take for help

Brad Miller:

us to recover. As a country and as a world and this go with that

Brad Miller:

little bit. Do you think there's any validity to that state

Vincent Pugliese:

under there's tons of it, it's innovation,

Vincent Pugliese:

innovation comes from entrepreneurship, it comes from

Vincent Pugliese:

people that have skin in the game to create something that

Vincent Pugliese:

can be an enterprising to where you can build something around

Vincent Pugliese:

it. And every the examples people use in terms of in terms

Vincent Pugliese:

of inspiring are rarely employee driven? Yes. Rarely do you say

Vincent Pugliese:

that employee, you know, the people that people know, I'm not

Vincent Pugliese:

always the big names. I go to more obscure people, but people

Vincent Pugliese:

go, the Elon Musk's and the Mark Zuckerberg is all entrepreneurs.

Vincent Pugliese:

Yes. Everything people talk about that change the world.

Vincent Pugliese:

Tesla? No, I'm talking, you know, right. Nikola Tesla,

Vincent Pugliese:

entrepreneurial, where they're coming up with ideas, and

Vincent Pugliese:

they're creating, and it's not following the leader. It's not

Vincent Pugliese:

waiting for your boss to give you permission to do something.

Vincent Pugliese:

It's, I'm going to take control, and I'm going to do it. And I

Vincent Pugliese:

think a lot of people get stuck in the hole. Well, I came out of

Vincent Pugliese:

college, I've got my college debt. You know, I got married, I

Vincent Pugliese:

bought a nice house, a nice neighborhood because I can

Vincent Pugliese:

afford it. Now. I have the cars and I have the kids. And now

Vincent Pugliese:

this happens. What am I supposed to do? I can't quit my job. I've

Vincent Pugliese:

got the house. And my whole thing is people should think

Vincent Pugliese:

about that beforehand. The whole point is for me is get yourself

Vincent Pugliese:

financially free as quickly as possible, and then decide, but

Vincent Pugliese:

you're basing that on a salary, that in a moment, they can take

Vincent Pugliese:

away. Everything you've built up is a house of cards and illusion

Vincent Pugliese:

and it's gone.

Brad Miller:

Yeah, just just quick take on my situation. Oh,

Brad Miller:

by downside, I'm getting ready to retire from my career because

Brad Miller:

I've been involved with and be more into entrepreneurship. The

Brad Miller:

next few months, but my wife and I downsized a year or so ago to

Brad Miller:

a smaller home about the time the COVID COVID crisis hit a

Brad Miller:

month later. And also my two adult sons, one was in college,

Brad Miller:

the college, kicked them all out Indiana University kicked them

Brad Miller:

all out of you know, being there. So he had to come home

Brad Miller:

and my other son had a job situation which required him to

Brad Miller:

move on to all of a sudden, everything everybody, you know,

Brad Miller:

it happened here so we've had to make that work and it's been

Brad Miller:

okay. But we have to navigate life and had been much better

Brad Miller:

have my two sons have been a little bit better prepared or if

Brad Miller:

we had been a little better prepared to resettle.

Vincent Pugliese:

I don't blame people for it. I think it's a

Vincent Pugliese:

system that we were raised in. It's a system we're raised in.

Vincent Pugliese:

We were raised from six years old to go to school. follow

Vincent Pugliese:

orders. Go where people tell you to do and get a good job.

Brad Miller:

Yeah, yeah, it's no no educational system has its

Brad Miller:

own flaws. Eric With that whole situation there as well. So if

Brad Miller:

we can just teach a value about how to make entrepreneurial

Brad Miller:

thinking, when things well, I'd like your take on this as well.

Brad Miller:

One of my favorite authors is Jim Collins, which is good to

Brad Miller:

great Good to Great. Yeah. And he, you know, he's written

Brad Miller:

several books, one of his other books was also about how the

Brad Miller:

mighty have fallen. And it was, it was basically about how those

Brad Miller:

companies and those who have succeeded not only have good

Brad Miller:

degrade thinking, which says that, you know, good is the

Brad Miller:

enemy of great, you know, which is an entrepreneurial thinking.

Brad Miller:

But he also says that, though, they have the emotional makeup

Brad Miller:

and the mighty have fallen, of being of being just absolutely

Brad Miller:

committed to the mission or the vision. Yep. And still be in it

Brad Miller:

with humility, not with hubris. Yep. I love that thinking that

Brad Miller:

it's like your your take on that about how we can move forward

Brad Miller:

here, humbly, serving others, and helping them you know, by

Brad Miller:

some of the things you offer on your website, so things like how

Brad Miller:

can we? How can then we chase a grant that we are compensated

Brad Miller:

appropriately for serving others?

Vincent Pugliese:

I think it all comes down to generosity. It all

Vincent Pugliese:

comes down to your helpfulness. And because everybody has their

Vincent Pugliese:

goals, what are my goals? If they're all selfish goals, for

Vincent Pugliese:

the most part, they're not generally generous goals.

Vincent Pugliese:

Generous goals are, how do I help other people do something?

Vincent Pugliese:

While I'll get my reward, at some point from it, as opposed

Vincent Pugliese:

to, I want this, I want six figures. I want this. Nobody

Vincent Pugliese:

cares that you want a best selling book, nobody cares that

Vincent Pugliese:

you want a top rated podcast, they're, they're too worried

Vincent Pugliese:

about themselves. People don't do the things that others want

Vincent Pugliese:

first, meaning, oh, how do I get more reviews on my podcast? And

Vincent Pugliese:

I'm like, do you leave reviews for other people's podcast? No,

Vincent Pugliese:

I don't have time for that. But all the time. Do you? Do you

Vincent Pugliese:

support your friends? books? No, I'm kind of focused on my book.

Vincent Pugliese:

Nobody. And I say all that nobody cares. Nobody cares.

Vincent Pugliese:

Because they don't know how much they don't know that you're

Vincent Pugliese:

trying to help anybody. Anyway, people helpful. People want to

Vincent Pugliese:

help helpful people. Yeah. So I start every day. And this is my

Vincent Pugliese:

next book, I start every day with the hour of giving, which

Vincent Pugliese:

is basically I'm not thinking about anything that I need. I'm

Vincent Pugliese:

not thinking anything that I want. What is going on with the

Vincent Pugliese:

people in my life? Who are the people I need to reach out to? I

Vincent Pugliese:

haven't reached out to who the people I need to connect

Vincent Pugliese:

together? What are the things that I need to do to be the

Vincent Pugliese:

person that I want to be to lift the people around me, because

Vincent Pugliese:

I'll tell you, if you lift all the people around you up your

Vincent Pugliese:

network, it's better, everybody around you is doing better,

Vincent Pugliese:

because you're helping them get better. But we don't focus on

Vincent Pugliese:

that we focus on our own goals. So I truly believe what you're

Vincent Pugliese:

saying is absolutely spot on, which is it's generosity and

Vincent Pugliese:

helpfulness, that's gonna get us there. But the problem is, so

Vincent Pugliese:

many people are in the spot that you're talking about, which is

Vincent Pugliese:

they're struggling, that they say I can't, I don't have time

Vincent Pugliese:

for that. So I got to get my own stuff.

Brad Miller:

I've heard it's in effect, I've used this

Brad Miller:

occasionally, when I sign off on our letter, whatever people

Brad Miller:

don't. People don't care about how much you know, until they

Brad Miller:

know how much you care. Yeah. And that's a great way to put

Brad Miller:

that. So well, let's you've developed all of this, which

Brad Miller:

you've shared here, just tremendous stuff. And you've

Brad Miller:

organized in such a way that you offer people a lot of things and

Brad Miller:

on your website. So let's just talk for a minute about how

Brad Miller:

people can get connected to events and how they can go a

Brad Miller:

little deeper with you if they choose to. You've driven as

Brad Miller:

great value here on beyond adversity and because we're all

Brad Miller:

about helping people, you know, to win those bad events come and

Brad Miller:

they do you know, they do I get categorized with five different

Brad Miller:

levels. One is debt, which is a Financial Peace. One is disease,

Brad Miller:

which could be the COVID crisis. One could be depression, which

Brad Miller:

is the emotional piece one is, you know, divorce, which can be

Brad Miller:

the relationship piece when his death, you know, and I, you

Brad Miller:

know, death of a loved one, which many people have had to

Brad Miller:

deal with this year. Yep. But how we deal with those things

Brad Miller:

makes all the difference. And you've given us some great hints

Brad Miller:

here, but so tell people how if people want to go a little

Brad Miller:

deeper with you, yeah. How they can can do that and get them

Brad Miller:

well resourced.

Vincent Pugliese:

Yeah, I mean, I appreciate that. Well, before

Vincent Pugliese:

I even have a plug in like that, that's I think, to the point,

Vincent Pugliese:

what I've learned is, for the people that I've followed is you

Vincent Pugliese:

the generosity factor is the key. And that's where I want to

Vincent Pugliese:

start with, really, I have friends who say like, Well, how

Vincent Pugliese:

do I help people that can't afford it? Like, well, that's

Vincent Pugliese:

why I do the podcast, I do a daily podcast, right? do my best

Vincent Pugliese:

work I could possibly do. And I put it into a daily show. So you

Vincent Pugliese:

don't need to hire me for anything. If you want help from

Vincent Pugliese:

me, you can go there and there's something every day there's no

Vincent Pugliese:

ads, there's no commercials, no intro outro it's just a five

Vincent Pugliese:

minute six minute piece. So I feel good with myself that the

Vincent Pugliese:

fact that like I'm giving value without any expectation, but we

Vincent Pugliese:

also we there's different levels to that we have to make a

Vincent Pugliese:

living, right. I hate that term. But we I'm a capitalist. We

Vincent Pugliese:

believe in this where you don't Change until you invest. That's

Vincent Pugliese:

my opinion, I, we take 10% of our income every year and we

Vincent Pugliese:

invest back in ourself. Now I'm not talking about investments

Vincent Pugliese:

like stock market or real estate I'm talking about in my own

Vincent Pugliese:

development in my own development of courses or

Vincent Pugliese:

coaches or masterminds. So I believe in that, so we do that

Vincent Pugliese:

as well. So when people pay, they pay attention. So we have

Vincent Pugliese:

different levels to it, which are we give a lot for free, I

Vincent Pugliese:

give my AUDIO BOOK away for free, I will give it to your

Vincent Pugliese:

audience, if you go to total iframe comm, you see an orange

Vincent Pugliese:

button free audio book and give the entire thing away for free.

Vincent Pugliese:

So anybody feel free to go get that, and I feel good doing

Vincent Pugliese:

that. But what people pay me for is access an implementation.

Vincent Pugliese:

They pay me to have my personal access on their situation on my

Vincent Pugliese:

network that we build up together, and then helping them

Vincent Pugliese:

implement. You don't need to hire me for that. But that's why

Vincent Pugliese:

every, this is something I can teach. For anybody that's

Vincent Pugliese:

thinking about starting a business, there's all these

Vincent Pugliese:

different levels, there's free content that you give, that

Vincent Pugliese:

builds trust, the podcast builds trust, I don't earn an income

Vincent Pugliese:

off, but the free book builds trust that you like it, but then

Vincent Pugliese:

from there, we offer all different levels of stuff that

Vincent Pugliese:

you could sign up for, at your own. What you need, there's

Vincent Pugliese:

people that pay for the high level mastermind, there's people

Vincent Pugliese:

that paid for the Foundation, which is which is much cheaper,

Vincent Pugliese:

I want to be able to give everybody every spot something

Vincent Pugliese:

where I can help them. Obviously, the higher up it

Vincent Pugliese:

goes, the more access they have to me, but you don't need it. So

Vincent Pugliese:

if you want to total freedom, calm, it's you get the free

Vincent Pugliese:

stuff, you see the options of what we do within our business.

Vincent Pugliese:

It's all very simple. Awesome.

Brad Miller:

And it all starts with gratitude. Right? It all

Brad Miller:

starts all starts with gratitude. And so if you just

Brad Miller:

live your life where you and I love what you share their

Brad Miller:

minute, you know, you have your add your hour of gratitude or

Brad Miller:

hour of giving, of giving Yeah, that you said and that that's

Brad Miller:

expressing gratitude to others, and you give by various ways to

Brad Miller:

serve others. And then and people then then do good stuff

Brad Miller:

comes back to you. And so I truly believe that that can

Brad Miller:

happen. And so I'm grateful to you, my friend, Vince, for your

Brad Miller:

time that you shared with us here today on, on beyond

Brad Miller:

adversity as, as you know, you know, adverse conditions happen

Brad Miller:

to everybody, but nothing really happens to you take action and

Brad Miller:

the first action that we've learned from you today is be

Brad Miller:

grateful, is be grateful. So, thank you so much for a friend

Brad Miller:

and so we just think that's it puglisi for being our guest

Brad Miller:

today on beyond adversity with Dr. Brad Miller.

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