Stop Building Wealth and Start Building a LEGACY with Derek Wilson: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01Light that, Spark Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. are brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how to stop building wealth and start building a legacy. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought Derek Wilson into EO Fire Studios. After Derek's dad's sudden passing, he walked away from a multi-six-figure career with the software giant ClickFunnels to take over his family's 130-year-old ranch. That's where he started the Primal King podcast, Cross O Meats, and now lives on 2 ,700 acres in central Idaho with his wife and four kids.

0:36And today we talk about how there are more things than just money in life and how fulfillment is living your life in a way that will inspire other people and how to make the hard decisions and be brave through them and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Derek and our sponsors. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP trusted by over 43 ,000 businesses. And right now you can get NetSuite's free business guide, Demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash fire. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash fire. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies?

1:14Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white-label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Derek, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. All right. Well, first off, what is up, everybody? Super excited to be here. Thank you. All right. So I don't want to make everybody mad like 30 seconds into this, but I think that a lot of people don't actually want success or freedom for that matter. Is that going to make everybody mad?

1:56I think, you know, speaking in absolutes like that, maybe. We need some context behind it. Yeah, let's get some context. So I look at success as being freedom. I really believe that most people are out there trying to make a lot of money. They're out there trying to maybe get a higher status. And the main reason behind that, I believe, is that most people are actually wanting freedom, time freedom especially. But the reality is, is that freedom is really scary, right? Freedom requires responsibility, requires action, requires risk, I believe. And so a lot of times, I think most of us are a little bit risk averse.

2:32We like security and comfort. And I think a lot of times, most of us would choose that over freedom and along with that success. Fire Nation, I hope you understand the point that Derek's making here. He's not trying to make everybody upset. He's just trying to lay it down on the line, which I can personally respect. I kind of like to come at things straight. Don't blow smoke. Let's just say it like it is. And that's why we're talking about stop building wealth and start building a legacy today. Because we have some cool things to talk about around this topic. Because you walked away from ClickFunnels after your dad died, Derek.

3:04And you sold your dream home. You moved to a 2 ,700-acre ranch in central Idaho with your wife and four kids. Now, we were actually talking pre-interview about how it was five or six years ago. I was actually at the office in Boise, Idaho at ClickFunnels office where we got to hang out. And it was actually a really fun day. And hey, that was a fun office. I mean, Russell Brunson's a fun guy. You've got Dave Woodward. I mean, that must've been a cool working environment. At least it seems so from the outside. And you walked away from all of that. Tell us that story. First off, great people. Russell's awesome.

3:41Dave, all of those guys. guys. So I'll never forget. It was December 15th, 2016. I'm going into the office. We actually still had a little tiny office. The office that you went to was like the bigger version of it. At that point, it was a little tiny. There was only like five or six of us there, I think. And I get a call. It was actually... So I did all the high ticket sales for Russell's mastermind at that point. And so I was on a call and I get a call from my dad's home and I silence it. It's like, hey man I'm trying to get a deal here and uh another one and I block it and then finally my my brother he comes in because we actually did the sales together there he comes over he's like you need to you need to call your dad's house right now because we actually have different dads so sorry but so I call and turns out that he actually had a massive heart attack and died it was instant um didn't see it coming and from there that kind of set off like the next sets of events, if you want to call it that.

4:43Crazy story. I won't bore everybody here with it right now, but what ended up happening is that when my dad passed away, he didn't have a will. So first off, everybody, that's a good idea, right? And he had recently remarried. And so because of that, we were in danger of losing our family ranch. It had been in our family since 1890. And so kind of forced with a decision at that point, which was, do I continue on living a great life, making a ton of money with ClickFunnels, or do I kind of step into more of like what I saw legacy and more freedom? Uh, my job was great. Uh, like I said, I had everything I need, but there was always like kind of something missing.

5:24And I feel like a lot of that was freedom. And I, and I know that like, again, I wasn't trying to offend anybody at the very beginning, but that's why I'm so passionate about it because it does require in a lot of cases, like hard decisions. You know, me and my wife talking about like, gosh, do we, do we sell our dream home? We just bought it like a year and a half ago. You know, it's got the granite countertops and the walk-in showers and all of that. And if we do this, like we're moving back into a house that was built in 1908, like literally like falling down. So it wasn't just like walking away from click funnels.

5:53It was literally like, this is uprooting our life, our kids' life. And we're moving into a house that's like almost falling down. But there was like this pull that made it, it was almost like something that I couldn't do, right? Like I couldn't not do. And so, yeah, we made the decision after my dad had passed away that we were just going to go for it. We were going to sell our house, ended up walking away from ClickFunnels, starting our own businesses and really just pursuing that real freedom that I felt like I didn't have. Even though, again, like I had a great job. I had a job that most people, like I remember telling a friend of mine that I walked away, that I quit.

6:29And he was like, man, I'm going to tackle you right now. People don't get jobs like that. I'm like, no, I get it. I get it. But that's just not like what I want to do in my life. And in order for me to accomplish what I want, I knew I had to make some of those hard decisions. Now, you did mention that you walked away from a ton of money, but the reality is you found that money didn't make you happy. I mean, maybe you realized that at the time, or maybe this was a later realization, so you can fill us in there, but you ended up finding fulfillment. So kind of walk us through this revelation that you went through about money does not equal happiness.

7:03And let's talk about the fulfillment angle as well. When I was young, I grew up very poor. And I know a lot of people look at poor being like, oh, I just didn't have the nicest clothes or whatever. So when I was young, to put it into perspective, we actually, in the first house that we lived in, me and my two older siblings, we shared a room and it had a partial dirt floor. So you heard the saying, dirt floor poor? Well, there you go. And, uh, as I got a little bit older, my mom ended up remarrying and, and, uh, we ended up doing a little bit better obviously, but like I grew up very poor. And so for me, it was always a matter of success equals money, money equals success.

7:41And so when you get to that point, you're making a bunch of money and you have, you know, the nice car and my, my, you know, for me, I'm kind of a country boy. It was a pickup. Right. But you know, like I had that, I had the house, like had money in the bank, like everything's good. No debt really like to speak of. and it was like, huh, this is awesome, but why doesn't it feel better? I have a great marriage and I have awesome kids. I'm making all this money. Then it was like, oh, because I'm not focusing on anything beyond myself, like legacy type stuff. That was really what made me reconsider.

8:14When we were going back and forth on the decision on whether to move back up to our ranch and take that over and buy my stepmom out and this whole long story, it was like, that's the type of stuff legacy is built on, like having your kids be able to be outdoors and being a part of a, a, you know, a small, very tight knit community and being able to help each other out. Like, those are the things that, that I knew I was missing at that point. And so that was really what we kind of made the change on is like, all right, we'll always be able to make money, right? Like if, if, if I believe that if, if you're smart, you work hard, you know, have good morals and ethics.

8:47Like I always believe that you'll be able to, to be successful financially, but will you ever actually get to a point in your life where that success actually means something outside of you just kind of having material things? And that was really the journey that I wanted to go down. Fire Nation, I hope you realize that there are those two sides of every coin. It's like, okay, we look on Instagram, we look at different places like MTV Cribs back in the day and all these things were like, oh my God, look at those people. They're so rich. They have such nice clothes and cars and houses and lifestyles.

9:17They must be so happy. And then, And, you know, reality TV kind of comes out and you're like, wait a second, those people actually have pretty screwed up lives. So those people actually go through the same struggles and obstacles and challenges that we all go through. And it's just the fact that they have more and more and more doesn't mean happier, happier, happier. In fact, sometimes it can actually mean the opposite. I mean, I do love myself a little big papa, you know, with more money, more problems. I mean, sometimes that is the case. Not all the time is fire an issue because you can do some pretty cool things with some money that you have.

9:46but I love the angle on fulfillment. And so before we take a quick break, Derek, what would you say in a nutshell brings you most fulfillment in life right now? What brings me the most fulfillment is being able to live how I want to live. And I know that seems super vague, but if you think about how many times, even in my past, like I would get up and I would have to commute to work and I would have to work and then you'd have to kind of punch a time clock out maybe. And when you have a point in your life to where you are free to kind of set your schedule, um, that doesn't necessarily mean work less either.

10:24Right. But it means you have control over, you have freedom over kind of what you do when you do it. Like to me, that brings me fulfillment because then I know that I actually have freedom. I actually have the ability to do the things that I want to do for the most part. Right. Like there's always going to be things, no matter who you are that you, you kind of are required to do, I guess. but for me, fulfillment is being able to take off and take my kids up in the mountains, or being able just to understand that there are more things than just money. I'm all about money too. I absolutely love being able to have nice things.

11:00And like you talked about with Biggie, more money. More problems, yeah. That's what I like to look at. More money, better problems. right? Like when you're not very, you know, maybe when you're poor, you have money problems and they're not very good ones. When you're rich, you still have money problems, but they're usually better problems, right? So yeah, but I think it's just, it is that freedom. Like that to me is what really provides me with the fulfillment side of it. Yeah. And again, like we're definitely not vilifying money here. I know Derek's not and I'm definitely not either. I mean, in our last income report, actually, we talked about how we just committed to the Entrepreneurs on Fire Torch scholarship where we're sponsoring one Puerto Rican student every year to my alma mater, Providence College.

11:43And we're going to be actually having four students every... So one student every grade year, freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. Legacy, right? That's legacy. That is something that now you are able to do to spread out and is going to impact and change other people's lives. It's not you just sitting there hoarding all the money, right? And again, if you want to do that, fine. But to me, there's so many awesome things that you can do to create an impact that money allows you to do, right? But if that's the only goal in life, I think you're going to find yourself being a little bit unfulfilled.

12:10And I'm a big believer that money's meant to be a vehicle. Like it's meant to be used in this world. Like money is energy. When you just put it in a bank account, let it sit there, it literally rots, just like Scrooge McDuck. Like it rots and you just like have all your gold coins, like sitting in this one vault doing nothing. But when you can use this money, this wealth that you're creating and have it be a change for good, I mean, that's an amazing, exciting thing. and we're going to talk about some ways that Derek is building his wealth when we get back from thanking our sponsors. It feels like every business conversation right now comes back to AI.

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15:15Talk about these two companies. I'll talk about cross-o meat first, I guess, because that's kind of like the business side of it, right? So about three weeks before my dad passed away, and maybe you'll see this all kind of interlocks, and I go through that on the podcast, and we can kind of maybe get into that in a minute. But about three weeks before, what most people don't understand, I guess, kind of in the cattle world, right? So in the ranching world, if you will, is that most of the people who are raising cows, they're essentially on a fixed market. You could raise the nicest cows ever and calves, and the market tells you you're going to get a certain price for them.

15:58It doesn't matter how great it is. Now, again, I talk about having more things be important than just money, but at the end of the day, I'm a capitalist, and that drives me crazy. It drives me crazy that you could raise in any business, that you could do great and just be told that you could only make a certain amount off of that. And so about three weeks again, before my dad passed away, it was one of those really bad years to where I will never forget, um, right here outside of my house, my dad was down there. And so what would happen is that these people come up in these big semis and they load up all of these, uh, what they call yearlings, these calves, and they hand you a check and the calves go away.

16:35And that's basically your money for the entire year. If you're a rancher, right. And I know this might be outside of a lot of people that you listen to in the business world, but that's kind of the way that business operates. Well, it was a really, really bad year. And I remember my stepmom saying, you know, my dad's name was Dave. Well, what are we going to do this year, Dave? What are we going to do? And I remember looking at my dad and he was an old cowboy, tough as nails, never complained, but you could just see like the look of dejection on his face of just like, I don't, I don't know what we're going to do.

17:05And when she asked him that question, what are we going to do, Dave? And he was just like, I don't know, we'll figure it out. And there's no doubt in my mind that a big part of what contributed to the stress and ultimately the heart attack was the fact that he had no control over that. And I try not to get like, I don't know, super soapboxy, but man, that was hard for me to handle because I was just like, he had no control over it. He did such a good job, like raising these cows and caring for him and doing everything the right way. But yet it was like he was still getting penalized because of that's that business model.

17:42And I was like, you know what? I don't feel like that's right. There's basically like four companies that control the entire beef industry. We could get into that, but it's probably going to bore people. But at the end of the day, essentially, it's all price fixed. And so I was like, you know what? What if we say, screw you guys, right? Like screw you big beef producers. Screw all you people who put it to my dad, I feel like, over his entire life, just working hard, trying to get by. I mean, he lived on like$20 ,000 a year most years, if he actually even made money. And he was okay with it, but it was like, I'm not, I'm not okay with that.

18:14And so I was like, you know what we're going to do? We're going to go right around those people. We're just going to go direct to consumer. Like we raised the best beef. Like, you know, like I told you, our, our ranch has been in our family for over, over 130 years now, notorious around for great raising great cattle. And I was like, there's no reason why these guys should be able to screw us. And I was like, if I don't think it's right, I can sit here and complain about it or we can do something about it. So me and my wife sat down and we're like, let's do this business. Let's go direct to consumer with our beef.

18:44And yeah, that's exactly what we did. And so we kind of took what I feel like is a really, really bad situation because as these ranches continue going out of business, it's going to create a problem at some point, right? These people have to be able to make money or else we don't have meat. And I know meat's kind of controversial these days for some reason, But the reality is like most of us still eat meat. And if these people keep going out of business, it's not going to be a good thing. And so that it was kind of it was kind of our way of saying like, hey, we're tired of you taking advantage of people.

19:17We're going to start with our ranch first. Make sure we can prove this concept. And then as we continue growing, we're helping more and more ranches around us. Right. Like that's the big thing is like, OK, we prove this works. Now we can start supporting other people who are literally like so many of these people in these rural communities that are ranching. they're hanging on by a thread. And it's like, you know, if we could figure out a way to cut out the middleman, be able to have like reasonable rates, like not only can that help us, but that can help other people. And so that's, that's what we've been doing for the past couple of years with that business.

19:48Fire Nation, I like how Derek's kind of breaking down this process and how he's like, you know what? I could complain about this or I can actually figure out a way to do things my way that I know is the right way. Now, before we move on, Primal King podcast, what's the deal? With the Primal King podcast, it ties into all of this. So I always like podcasts, listen to them. I was like, you know, it'd be kind of cool to put one together. And so I wanted to do it. So the three pillars are liberation, lifestyle, and legacy. So liberation is all around being able to think differently. When I was growing up, again, living very rural, I grew up in a town of 400 people, and that's actually where I am now outside of that.

20:28So very, very small town. Sometimes you can kind of get stuck in certain ways of thinking, maybe scarcity mindset, a lot of those types of things. And so like, thank God I was able to end up working with Russell and meeting a ton of like some of the top internet marketers out there and being able to see what was possible. And so it was like, first off, I feel like if you're going to have success, fulfillment, you, you a lot of times have to have a mindset shift. You have to understand that you actually can achieve those things because when you grow up, maybe poor, you grow up rural, maybe inner city, wherever it is, you might actually think that you're stuck, that you have no options, you have no way out.

21:00That was how I grew up. Being able, first off, to liberate your mindset was the number one thing I wanted to do. Secondly is lifestyle. I think so often we get so stuck thinking about, what do I want my bank account to say? What do I want the neighbors to say about me? But we forget to be like, what do I actually want my life to look like? what do I want to do when I wake up in the morning? What do I want to do for fun? What do I want to do to get my energy out or whatever it may be? We don't really, in my opinion, spend much time thinking about what type of lifestyle we actually want to have.

21:33We think about maybe the life that we want to build and the income and the wealth, but not very much about the actual lifestyle. And so that was the second pillar. And then the third one was legacy. And this was just thinking more about like, you know, and I always worry that this can come off as like a vanity type of thing to where, or an ego thing to where it's like, Oh, I got to build a legacy. I want everybody to remember me. No, it's about keeping in mind that I feel like a big path to fulfillment on top of freedom is actually being able to help other people. Just like what you're doing with the scholarships, right?

22:04Like that's the type of stuff. Legacy is that some kids someday will look back at you and they'll be like, that guy changed my life. He changed my life. And you can impact families and generations because of what you've been able to do by thinking outside of yourself and building your own legacy. So the Primal King podcast, the way that it started is the first three episodes was taking you through how this all went down. And if you go listen to the first three episodes, I was so nervous and the sound quality wasn't very good, but it goes through the whole story of, so I was given basically 14 days to come up with almost a million dollars in order to buy out my stepmom from our ranch.

22:44And so the process of going through that, how we had to make these decisions, kind of what led us to where we're at was how I wanted to start it. And then from there, I've gone out and I've been able to get a bunch of really, really cool people in the business space, influencers. So I typically, I do a solo episode and then I do a guest. And so being able to pick other people's brains about what success look like for them and what they've come from and where they've been able to go. And again, just really focusing on kind of the mindset of being able to help people get out of a rut, helping people maybe learn from other people who have gone before them and have had success and really just hopefully providing some inspiration and value that people can actually achieve what they want to achieve.

23:24They can live the way they want. They can earn what they want to earn, right? Like so many of us get stuck thinking that, oh my gosh, my dad didn't go to college and I didn't go to college. So I'm just going to be poor my whole life. Like, no, there's so many opportunities out there. And so I really just wanted to be able to shine a light on that and teach people how to have success with fulfillment. Fire Nation, I hope you're inspired by how Derek's being open and honest and saying, hey, I was nervous at the beginning. My sound quality wasn't great, but I kept at it. I believed in my topics. I believed in what I was creating.