Million Dollar Flip Flops - Peace, Prosperity and the Courage to Change Course with Rodric Lenhart

0:01Boom! Shake the room, 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 The Product Boss. Today, we'll be breaking down million-dollar flip-flops, peace, prosperity, and the courage to change course. To drop these value bombs, I brought Roderick Lenhart into EO Fire Studios. Roderick's core values center around freedom, experience, and autonomy, guiding his approach to business and life. 100 % of his profits from his ventures are donated to Send a Student Leader Abroad.

0:38And today, our nation will talk about the WAVES method. We'll talk about peace, prosperity, and the courage to change course, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Roderick and our sponsors. Online Marketing Made Easy podcast, hosted by Amy Porterfield, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business, including digital courses, list building content, and more. Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes. A recent episode that will help you get more results with a whole lot less stress is on four ways to avoid burnout.

1:14Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts. What do your favorite successful entrepreneurs have in common? Trusted partners. If you're looking for a commerce platform you can trust, you have to try Shopify. Sign up for a$1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash onfire, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash onfire. Roderick, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. I think that you have to give certain things up to be successful and that you can't have it all because I believe that's very possible.

1:56You just have to identify early on what it is you actually want and what your definition is, not society's. Fire Nation, that's why you know one of my favorite words slash acronyms, focus. Follow one course until success. Don't follow 10 courses. Don't try to have it all. Know what you want, focus on that, and drive, drive, drive. And today we're talking about the million dollar flip-flops. Peace, prosperity, and the courage to change course. Let's talk, Roderick, about your story, the origin story, the aha moment that brought million dollar flip-flops to fruition. I grew up in Michigan, didn't have a lot of money, grew up listening to my parents argue about the lack thereof at the dinner table, and always been an entrepreneur, multiple businesses, fast forward through college and a couple moves.

2:52And I am in Charleston, South Carolina, 24 years old. I'm making more in a month than my parents ever made in a year. And I can buy anything I want, do anything I want, go anywhere I want. And I am absolutely miserable and hate my life. And I wake up every day with that sinking, you know, is this all there is feeling? And saving you a lot of gory details along the way. I've always been kind of a nonfiction nerd. And by the time I was that age, I'd probably read 200 plus nonfiction books. And honestly, man, I dove into those books and I had to develop a way to dig myself out of this hole. I just couldn't, I couldn't figure out how I got here, you know?

3:35And that's ultimately what I did. I built this system that I, from that day forward, I filtered every decision I made in my life through. And it was just for me. It wasn't for anybody else. I would tell buddies maybe, but that is ultimately what turned into, I sold my last business last year, and that's ultimately what turned into this book and everything we're doing now. But I want to dive deeper on something you shared earlier, because I think a lot of people would have a hard time grappling with some things that you just said, because you made the comment that you had more money you knew what to do with.

4:07You could do it anywhere in the world. You could do whatever you wanted. You literally had everything at your fingertips, what people try to spend their lives acquiring. So let's try to get deeper into like, why? Like, why was that not enough? And why was that actually not a good thing in your life? Yeah, that's a great question. So I don't necessarily think that we're taught to think this way. And it's considered probably a selfish way to think. And I'll tell you more about the Waves Method and what I do with my clients and what the book's about, etc. But the second part of that, the A, is authenticity.

4:46And it's identifying what you want, not what your parents want, what your pastor wants, what your business partner wants, what your kids want. It's what you want. And it very much comes from that premise of you can only fill others' cups if yours is full. and we aren't taught to think that way. And if you go back to that time in my life, which I call the dark place, but if you go back to that place, I was not living by my values and I hadn't taken the appropriate amount of time to identify what those were. So sure, I had money, I had security, but if you look at my top three values now, buddy, it's freedom, autonomy, connection.

5:27And I was working for a Fortune 100 builder and I'm babysitting a garage all day. I see five people a week. I have no freedom. I have no autonomy. I'm not talking to people. I'm not getting that connection. And then I wonder why I'm miserable every day. And that was something at the time that money can't buy that. So that's kind of what I said at the top of the show was, you have to identify really early on what it is you want and what success looks like to you, not to anybody else, not to the Western world, to you. And it's very different for all of us. And I will say that I've interviewed over 4 ,000 successful entrepreneurs, and many of them I've asked the question, what is your worst entrepreneurial moments?

6:09And it's shocking how many of their worst moments is the day they sold their business, is the day that they accomplished and or achieved what they thought was going to make them happiest actually made them the most unhappy because it wasn't about the destination, it wasn't about now having a huge bank account. It was about doing what they loved doing, having a relevancy in the world, like getting up every day, having a purpose, having progress, being part of something meaningful. And you did build this business differently than any of your others. So tell us more about that. You know, I sold my last business, I guess, a little over a year ago now.

6:45And I took six months off and I was very much in a position to just strap on my white Velcro New Balance and fiddle around the garage and call it a life. But like I'm wired, like you're wired, like everyone listening to this show is wired. That's just simply an impossibility, right? So it was, you know, what am I going to do with this next chapter? And you very often hear me saying, I don't know what chapter two is going to look like, but I can't see it while I'm in chapter one. So I built that last business very purposely to scale and exit, which is what I did. And it bought me the runway to just have pure time and think, which as an entrepreneur, or you don't typically get a lot of.

7:29And the way we built this business, I call it the left and right side of the business, but million-dollar flip-flops being the left side. So that's the book, the journal, the courses, private coaching, mastermind, all of those income-generating things. We donate 100 % of profits from that business to our foundation, send a student leader abroad. And that's my why every day very much boils down to on the left side, million dollar flip flops. I get to watch light bulbs go off for people every day as we do these deep dives into what they really want from their life and their business. All of that money gets donated.

8:08And then I get to watch the same light bulbs go off for the kids that we help through the foundation. Fire Nation, I hope you're starting to get some understanding about what drives Roderick. And I hope that you're starting to get some thoughts in your mind about what is it that drives you, which I think kind of brings us, Roderick, to the Waves method. I mean, you already talked about the A, the authenticity part of it. Let's go through this method. I want Fire Nation to be fully into what you have going on with Waves. Sure. The W is your why. And that is, we hear a lot about your why these days, but it's that passionate reason you get up every day other than a paycheck.

8:47And when I'm working with folks or I'm running a workshop, we'll start to work on that first piece. And I'll say, but it can't involve money, power, or notoriety. And occasionally you'll just watch people's face go blank. What's it about? And that's the idea, right? Is that we're developing this in you and you only. And that's very specifically why I put the A next authenticity is coming at both of these things, the Y and the V values. You have to be doing this for yourself. And I'll give you an example. if I'm working with a mother or a father and we're going through their values and say they're they come up with a list of 30 or 40 what we'll start to do with those because if you have more than four or five they can't be actionable so we group them we that's part of what goes into the but a parent will almost always list family as one of their top values and it doesn't necessarily have to be to be a good dad to be a good mom and it's back to filling your cup first so that you can fill others and when you drill down into that and i'm like a toddler in these sessions buddy i'm like why oh yeah why why why and you get to the bottom of what really drives and they're like well i guess i guess it isn't that poor it doesn't have to be up there because these other things are what make me a good mom or a good dad so that's a good example of of again why you need somebody on the outside looking in and somebody to kind of call you call you out when you're maybe going down the wrong path on those things so as we develop v your values you know that's something that you to go out into the world and look at every day so we build this list and then you explore that's the e-waves so you're having a really great day everything's you know on fire and you're in full of clock is the distant memory you know just man i love my life you pull out that values list you're working on and you say what am i honoring right now why what of my values here are is making me feel this way and then conversely you're having a time it's gone to hell you know you want to quit your business you don't want to talk about you will crawl into a hole why you know what values are you not honoring they're not keeping you in that space of abundance and gratitude.

11:04And from those things, from your why and your values, we build your statement of purpose. And your SOP is that kind of finessed, cajoled two or three sentences. If you're from the sales world, it's your elevator pitch. It's invariably, you'll want to go back and start to tweak your why a little bit. You have a lot more clarity on who you are as a person, who you want, or how you want to show up in the world. And then you'll tweak your values. And then your statement of purpose will change a little bit. So it's a very fluid thing. And it's so much fun for me to watch this develop in people on the fly.

11:37And man, it's like I get chills talking about right now. It's just it's the juice, you know. Fire Nation, I hope you're getting some chills as he's going through this method, kind of mentally going through it yourself. I mean, there's so many cool things that you can do when you go through processes that are proven processes that are created by people who have been there and done that. Apply it to you, apply it to your life, and see where you can go. And we have so much more to talk about when we get back from thanking our sponsors. If you're a sales leader, then you know that expectations are at an all-time high these days.

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12:43And at a bonus, reps can automate their busy work so they can focus on doing what they do best, closing deals. It's smart software for smart sales teams that feels good to use. With Sales Hub, closing deals is no big deal. Try it for yourself at HubSpot.com slash sales. It's hard to believe it was over nine years ago that we launched our first physical product. I remember having no idea where to start, and that's why I'm so glad I found Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or IPO ready, Shopify is the only tool you need to grow your business without the struggle.

13:20Shopify puts you in control. So whether you're selling t-shirts from Shopify's in-person POS system or knitted blankets on Shopify's all-in-one e-commerce platform, you are covered. Shopify's in-person POS system has been so helpful for us when it comes to selling our physical product at events. They make it so easy. Shopify powers 10 % of all e-commerce in the US, a global force powering Allbirds, Rothy's, and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across over 170 countries. This is possibility powered by Shopify. Sign up for a$1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash onfire, all lowercase.

13:55Go to shopify.com slash onfire to take your e-commerce business to new heights. Shopify.com slash onfire. Roger, we're back and I want to move into a TEDx talk that you have created that's releasing very shortly. I know a lot of people in my audience have a dream, have a vision, have a goal of speaking from stages, of presenting. And of course, TEDx is an amazing stage for all the obvious reasons. Tell us about this talk. Tell us about how it came to fruition. You know, when you and I were scheduling this date, and I will use this time to unabashedly tout your show for you on your show. Is that a conundrum?

14:39That's cool. That's totally cool. Wrapped in a burrito? What is that? I don't know what that is. But while we were scheduling this, man, I thought about how many people are in my life now that came from this show, Amberville Hour. There's a lot of that I owe my current success to. Taylor would be one of those in TEDx. And I remember hopping with Maria and I told her, I said, you know, because it's a, I would say relatively expensive, but it's worth it. And like when you make any of these decisions, my, my personal, if I get one actionable nugget out of this thing, and that goes for a course, a seminar, there's program, it doesn't matter what it is.

15:22If I'm going to invest an hour list into a podcast, if I get one nugget out of this thing, it was worth it. And man has Taylor delivered, like his entire team is just top notch. But I mean, I could go on for hours about how that journey crafted a lot of things, specifically in the book. My book was off to the editor, and I was in one of his masterclasses for the TEDx talk, and it changed the tenor of the book a great deal. So I guess if the book's a success, I owe that in part to Taylor. I love hearing that. And Fire Nation, just to give you some further clarity, I mean, Thought Leader, they do that, exactly.

16:01They help you get on TEDx stages. And actually, because of people like you, Roderick, taking action on that, they actually have become a full-time annual sponsor of Entrepreneurs on Fire because Fire Nation is such a perfect audience for them. In fact, I haven't looked right now, but they might be sponsoring this very episode. But Fire Nation, if they're not, they're still a full-time sponsor. So you can check out thought-leader.com slash fire. And Taylor has a free training that kind of gets you down that path. And if you want to take the next step, you can do what Roderick did. jump on a call with Taylor and have a great conversation.

16:37And who knows, Fire Nation, you might be the next person on Entrepreneurs on Fire talking about your TEDx talk thanks to Thought Leader and everything they have going on. So that's super cool. And you wrote this book that we've been discussing very aerial-wise, this conversation, Million Dollar Flip-Flops, which is all about peace, prosperity, and the courage to change course in both life and business. What are some of the key takeaways that you can share right now with Fire Nation to kind of wet our appetites into this book? I'll say that the book, like most things in life, you get out what you put in and it is not for everyone at whatever stage they are in their journey.

17:20And if you're still listening to this and hear the words coming out of my mouth, it probably is for you. Because I like to say plenty of people want to eat, not very many people want to hunt. And this book is for hunters. I provide the framework. I provide what worked for me, what made me successful, what makes my clients successful. But ultimately, it comes down to you and you wanting it and wanting to do that deep dive into yourself, into what you really, really want for this life. And that can be uncomfortable for some people. So if Fire Nation wanted to learn more, I know we have a cool little link here, milliondollarfliflops.com slash EO Fire.

17:59What are they going to get when they go there? We have put together just for Fire Nation a bunch of downloads, actionable stuff. They can go there right now, download it, start using everything, same stuff I work with private clients on. It's all there in some form or fashion for them to work on today. And we also, our flagship course is launching and there is some pretty sweet Fire Nation discounts in there for just this audience. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with RL and JLD today, so keep up that heat. And Roderick, what's the one key takeaway that you want Fire Nation to walk away with from our entire conversation today?

18:49I will leave you with the cost of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. Some people, that's going to hit them right to their core, and they're going to think about what exactly they're exchanging right now in their day-to-day. And you know what, Fire Nation, for some of you, it's going to be what you need to take that step back, access exactly what it is that you want in life from that brilliant brain of yours, follow amazing opportunities and methods like the Waves Method, read amazing books like Million dollar flip-flops and other great resources that you have and take action. And of course, eofire.com, typing Roderick, R-O-D-R-I-C in the search bar will help you get all the links to everything we talked about here today.

19:32And Roderick, I want to say thank you, brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we do salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Roderick for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation. Successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That is why I created the Freedom Journal so that you can accomplish your number one goal in 100 days. And we're talking step by step. Visit thefreedomjournal.com and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Online Marketing Made Easy podcast hosted by Amy Porterfield is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business, including digital courses, list building content, and more Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes.

20:20A recent episode that will help you get more results with a whole lot less stress is on four ways to avoid burnout. Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts. What if instead of overwhelming potential customers, your commerce platform helped convert them into lifelong fans? It's possible with Shopify. Sign up for a$1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash onfire, all lowercase. go to shopify.com slash on fire.