Life isn't a Dress Rehearsal; It's Time to Start Your Entrepreneurship Journey with Cliff Kennedy: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Science of Scaling. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives and we'll be breaking down how life isn't a dress rehearsal. It's time to start your entrepreneurship journey today. To drop these value bombs, I brought Cliff Kennedy into EO Fire Studios. Cliff is a husband, a dad to three, a CEO of Frios Gourmet Pops, and he left his family business to pursue his entrepreneurship dream. Ultra running, fishing, and reading are his outlets.

0:37In today's Fire Nation, we'll talk about a mentor. We'll talk about listening to the stories of other people to be inspired and creating memories that will last a lifetime. And so much more, Fire Nation, when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Marketing Made Simple, hosted by my friend, Dr. JJ Peterson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy, and more importantly, make it work. A recent episode on whether vulnerability is a superpower in business is a must listen.

1:08Listen to Marketing Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Cliff, say what's up to Fire Nation and what's something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with? Well, what's up, Fire Nation? The one thing I firmly believe is that you don't have to sacrifice your family to be successful. You read all the books and they say, I've sacrificed my family time. I was putting in so many hours. But what I have done is I wake up so much earlier. I stay up later and I still have that time for my family. And I feel like I'm still going to be very successful in what we're doing.

1:47Fire Nation, work-life balance. It's possible. In fact, we're going to be talking about that later in this interview. And as you know from the intro, we're talking about what happens when you realize that life is not a dress rehearsal. It's just not. So it's time to start your entrepreneurship journey today. Because let's be honest, Cliff, being an entrepreneur, it's in certain people's blood. We can't get it out of our blood. Even if we want it out of it, we can't. So if that is the case, if Fire Nation is listening, they're like, entrepreneurship, it's in my blood. How do you take the entrepreneurial leap for yourself?

2:22It's just taking the risk and betting on yourself. When it's in your blood, you know what's right. and you have to do it because if you know your life isn't a dress rehearsal, as we said, you've got to take your shots. And if you fail, pick yourself back up and keep going. You hear all the stories of the failures that have happened, but all the greats pick themselves back up. They take the risk and they keep moving forward. So it was been ingrained in my brain since I was a kid that my grandfather started his company out of the back of his car because he felt a need in the industry that our family business was in.

2:57And I've always had that. And I just knew that I had to be able to create my own destiny. And that's what that took for me. Ingrained in his brain, Fire Nation, entrepreneurship was there. It wasn't going to get away from Cliff. It just wasn't going to happen. Now I want to move Cliff into analyzing the risk reward factors, because listen, we've got to analyze these things. We've got to know that when we go forward, the risk and the reward factors, they align. So talk to us about this process. So for me, I don't want to be 50, 60, 70 years old and look back and have the regret that I didn't tap into my entrepreneurship.

3:39I loved the family business that I was in, but that wasn't entrepreneurship for me. I was working for my parents and doing and living out their dreams and growing a company that they wanted to do. So for me, the risk was, do I want to be 70 or 80 years old and not taking the shot of doing what I believe that I was on? I am on this world to do. And that's what it was. And so the reward was being older in life and saying, I took the shot. I bet on myself. I knew what I needed to do. And I gave it 100 % every single day. And I will not have regret no matter what happens when I'm older. Fire Nation, I think you need to really take a step back and listen to these words that Cliff is talking about right now.

4:26He was living out their dreams. You know, in this case, it happened to be his parents, but fill in there for anybody. Are you living out your parents' dreams, your spouse's dreams, your significant other's dreams, your friend's dreams, dreams that you've conjured up for some weird reason to make them your dreams, but you know in your heart and your gut they're not? There's a fantastic book, Cliff, and I recommend all Fire Nation reading it as well, the five biggest regrets of the dying. And it was this hospice nurse for years and years and years. She spent time with people who are in their last few days of life.

4:58And the five biggest regrets she heard over and over again were very consistent. One of them was, I wish I lived out my dream, not somebody else's. And it just strikes people to the core because these are people that are on their way out and they spent their lives. living out somebody else's dream. Their parents may have passed when they were 40 or 50 or 60 or whatever, but they spent the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years of their life living out their parents' dreams who were gone. I mean, it's a crazy, crazy thing. And for whatever reason, it's like innate in us to at least think about doing these things because I did the same thing.

5:38That's why I went to law school. Hated it, quit finally. I mean, luckily, but man, I almost went down that path too. So just think about that. Now let's talk a little bit about being a franchisor. What is it like being a franchisor and helping others realize their entrepreneurial journey and your experience? It goes in right into what you just said of living out your dream. I get to see people live out their dreams through my company. So when we onboard franchisees, we say, what is your idea of success? Where do you want to be in five or 10 years? And being a part of that and seeing these young families, people that are semi-retired, living out their dreams and taking the shot and starting a business for themselves, it's amazing to be a part of that.

6:24So I wake up every day saying, how can I make my franchisees better in what they're doing? And how can I help them find their idea of success? And it's great to be a part of that and hear their stories, the struggles that I'm going through, they're going through. We pick each other up, motivate each other, and we're in it together. And that's what's great is seeing so many people start their entrepreneurship journey through my company. Fire Nation, there is so much excitement to see the ripple effect that something that you create, something that you do, someone that you help is now going off and having a bigger and better and more fulfilling life.

7:01And we talked about the work-life balance. We talked about how, you know, having to learn and to grow is going to improve and better yourself. But we're getting into real deep details when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Starting your year off strong and accomplishing goals like increasing revenue and faster growth starts with the right selling tools. And for that, there's the all new Sales Hub from HubSpot. Sales Hub is an all-in-one platform, thoughtfully built with the tools and insights you need to communicate on a personal level with every lead, prospect, and customer. Plus, it's powered by AI so your teams can spend less time on tedious, time-consuming stuff and more time developing relationships.

7:45Some of the other platforms out there take months and months to learn and integrate, but with Sales Hub, you can be up, running, and on your way to your best quarter yet in just minutes. I know what you're thinking. Sales Hub must cost a fortune. Nope, it's free to get started. and will grow with your business as it scales. And with more than 1 ,300 integrations and a ton of valuable add-ons, you can customize it to your exact needs. With Sales Hub, closing deals is no big deal. Head to hubspot.com slash sales to try it for free. Cliff, we're back. And one thing that I love in your message that you shared right at the top of the show is that, hey, you don't have to sacrifice your family, everything for your entrepreneurship journey.

8:27What is your work-life balance as a business owner? And combine that with your advice for other people who are struggling with work-life balance. We all sign up for what we do. We sign up to do the job and be 100 % into it, but make sure we love it. And so for me, I'm very passionate about being there for my kids. I wrote the other day on LinkedIn. I said, it was Sunday night and I could not sleep. I had a million things I needed to do for work. and I knew that it would always be there. But the next day I was taking my son somewhere because it was a vacation day. And seeing his excitement of being able to have a day with me will always be a memory that I will never forget that day.

9:12If you ask me two years from now, what were you doing on that day? I'll be able to tell you vividly everything my son and I did. But if I were to go to work that day and do all the tasks that I needed to do that were there the next day, would never, it'd just be a blip on the radar. I was going through the motions. So for me, it has always been putting my kids and my wife first and my family first. Everything else will fall into play. So how do I do that? I'll wake up at four, four 30 every day before the storm starts of getting the kids ready for school and all the kids going, um, and needing to be fed.

9:45So I get up, I read, I put out the emails, I start my day. And so when they get up at six 30, seven o 'clock, I start my day with my family, get them off to school, spend some time with them. And then I go and put a hundred percent into my efforts every single minute of the day on work. And then I get home, spend some time with them. And if I need to read or whatever it is, that's my time. But I block out that time because I'll never get it back with my kids. And what specific advice can you give for people that are right now struggling with that? I mean, I love the waking up super early and crushing that part of the day.

10:23What's something else that's really worked for you that you think could work for people that are listening to this show? I just think as simply put that you can put 100 % in your effort during the day and still have time and have that work-life balance. I mean, there's so many distractions now of Facebook and LinkedIn and all the social media feeds that are coming through that you can listen to or watch and go down the rabbit hole of watching this video. So if you really want to analyze, look at what you're doing and where you're putting your time during the day that when you should be fully focused on your job and say, am I really putting in a hundred percent?

10:54And so for me, one of the things I did was I needed a self-awareness. You know, you only learn being a CEO by being a CEO. And so for me, I hired a coach. It was one of the most important things I've done in the last eight months of my life that can help me guide myself of what I'm doing and an understanding. And so that's been a biggest thing. So find a mentor, find a coach that can help you and understand what you're going through that there's so many other people doing it as well. So many other people are actively doing these things, Fire Nation. Believe me, you can too. Let's talk about learning and growing and bettering ourselves.

11:32You've been able to do that, you know, despite having a family and running a business and doing all of these things. How can you share with Fire Nation some tactics that you've picked up and some specific areas, locations, whether it be virtual, online, or in person, that you've been able to find to, again, learn and grow and better yourself as an entrepreneur, as a person. Listening to your podcast and listening to the stories of others and getting inspired and finding those bits of information that you might be missing out on that are on topic of what you're doing. It's reading that next book that you can apply to your work life.

12:05I just read The Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, and it's great. It's let me understand of what it's like to be CEO and understanding the decisions I have to make. So find what you need and where your weaknesses are and surround yourself with people that are much smarter than you, first and foremost, and learn from them and have that mentor that can guide you in the direction that you need to go. But it's always finding that path, whatever. If you're an audible learner, listen to the podcast. Listen to yours. Listen to the ones that are out there. If you need to read read the books that can apply to what you're doing and how to better yourself and who you want to be In the years to come surround yourself with people fire nation that better you That's one thing that I pulled out out of a lot of awesome things that cliff just shared And why do you think I end every single episode which i'll end this one as well with?

12:54By saying you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with and you've been hanging out with cliff and jld today So keep up the heat because these are true isms Cliff what drives you? Oh, it's my family every day giving ourselves a life that they will be happy, inspire them to be the best. And I tell my kids every single day, make someone's day great today. And so seeing my kids, raising them to be the best person they can be, whatever they want to be in life. My kids drive me and my wife drives me every single day. And that's what pushes me. I know when I wake up, I've got to put a hundred percent into everything I do to be the best husband, dad, business owner, entrepreneur, helper of all these people that are investing in my company to find their journey.

13:39That's it. I'm going to give a hundred percent every single day to everyone that comes in contact with me. 100%. Because Fire Nation, why would you give anything less? I mean, this is the one life you have to live. If this is in your blood, which we talked about on the first topic today, it's a hundred percent or zero percent. Go all in or don't even do it at all. So Cliff, you shared a ton of value bombs today. Lots of great takeaways. What's one thing you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from everything that we shared here today? Balance your life and make sure you're happy. That is it.

14:13Once you realize that you have a set amount of time left in life, and if you really start to break it down, you've got so much, so little time left. So make and take advantage of every opportunity. Create those memories that will last a lifetime. because once you really think about it, life isn't a dress rehearsal. So every single day you get one shot of it, give it 100%. Thrios Gourmet Pops. This is something that Cliff is working on right now, Fire Nation. This is a business that he has with gourmet frozen pops. These are delightful. I mean, he actually FedExed me in this frozen package, by the way.

14:55I mean, I get like medicine from the VA that has to remain cold, the Veterans Hospital. And like, they do a terrible job at it. This bro, he sent me like this freeze dried package that like, even the Puerto Rican humidity, it was still every popsicle was frozen like a rock. It was amazing. And these are gourmet pops. I mean, I was telling him before the episode because I was just going over how much my nine-year-old niece and my six-year-old nephew loved them and how, frankly, I can't keep away from them either. I mean, I've loved the birthday cake, the cold brew, the coconut flavored one. So cool.

15:27So let's give at the end here, Cliff, a little shout out to Frios. And I love your tagline, which is awesome, by the way. The best things in life are Frios. Talk to us quickly about that, how Fire Nation can maybe get a little gourmet frozen pop in their life as well. And then we'll say goodbye. Yeah, thanks. Frios is a mobile franchise system. So it allows for a lot of flexibility. It's a very simple system, perfect in the environment that we're in right now. And so it's for the startup of the young family that wants to start their entrepreneurship journey early, or it's for the people that are going into semi-retirement, but they don't want to fully retire and they want to involve their family.

16:06So it's simple. We sell happiness for a living through popsicles and we do it all across the country. And so you can either go to FriosFranchise.com and get more information or go to Frios Pops and see all of our flavors. Fire Nation, as I promised, I'm going to share this. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with CK and JLD today. So keep up that heat. Head over to eofire.com. Type Cliff in the search bar. His show notes page will pop up with everything we talked about today. Literally the best show notes in the biz. And Cliff, I just want to say thank you, brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today.

16:43For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Cliff. And if you've had your big idea, you'd be ready to ignite Fire Nation. but if you don't have your big idea, you're just a fizzle. My free training will get you to your big idea in less than an hour. Literally visit yourbigidea.io today, and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flippity flip side. Marketing Made Simple, hosted by my friend, Dr. JJ Peterson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

17:20Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and, more importantly, make it work. A recent episode on whether vulnerability is a superpower in business is a must listen. Listen to Marketing Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts.