The Real Reason Entrepreneurs Burn Out—And How to Fix It | Ep. 206 with Aaron Marcum Founder of Breakaway365

0:00Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Founder Story. Today, we have Aaron Markham, a serial entrepreneur and founder of Breakaway 365, a coaching program helping home care leaders scale their business and reclaim their freedom. And the great thing about Aaron is he's very positive. And that's why I'm excited to have you, Aaron, because I've been told sometimes I can be on the negative side and I need more positivity in my life. Everyone does. Thank you. See, everyone does, right? Everyone does. And I'm sure we can dive in all these things and I'm excited. But I know you're doing these events, immersive events, and you're helping a lot of people and impact five time bestseller USA Today bestseller.

0:44You've done amazing things. So before we go into all the nitty gritty of those, what was the spark that made you say, I want to create three breakaway 365? Yeah, you know, it's a culmination of many years as an entrepreneur. I've been in the home care space for 22 years, 23 years. I started as a home care owner. I started my own home care agency at 28 years old. and through that journey and that's a highly charged emotional uh field a lot of a lot of uh a lot of turnover a lot of uh challenges in and of itself and they're doing an amazing work like these home care agencies home care owners are doing amazing work what i found i saw this in myself is that i had a dream when i started what i wanted out of my business and then through the day-to-day and the stress and the turnover and the challenges that that brings in that industry, they lose sight of that.

1:49And so really the foundation of our program after 23 years of having been involved, being a founder of one home care agency and owning another, and I started a company back in 2009, data analytics companies that measured satisfaction and we raised the quality of standards for the entire industry. And I was seeing, because we were measuring so much data in that company that I started, Home Care Pulse is the name of the company, and it's now Activated Insights, I saw that a lot of the turnover and a lot of the challenges are being caused by burned out leaders, you know, People who are just, we call it always on leadership or always on ownership.

2:35They thought they had to be involved in the business all the time. So Breakaway 365, as the term states, I'm a cyclist. I got into cycling in 2016. But helping people break away from all of that and get back to why they started their home care business in the first place. Oh, no, I was going to say it reminds me of when I was a corporate regional manager. and I used to message people at two, three, four, five in the morning, and they would become very stressed out thinking they had to respond. It actually brought a lot of the morale down. And then, you know, I learned from that point, bringing that into my entrepreneurial ship is I need to be cautious in how I do things.

3:16So I'm curious around these data points, what you were seeing, can you, can you dive more into what were you seeing about these owners? and then would love to go to the next step. Yeah. Yeah. So in the data points, one of the key questions we would ask, these are surveys we send out. Think of like what JD Powers does for the auto industry. We were doing for the home care industry. And so one of the key questions, we call it the net promoter question, but it's a simple question. It's how likely are you to recommend services? Or on the employee side, how likely are you to recommend employment to family and friends?

3:55And the other question that correlated the most to the impact, like whether or not someone is going to score that high on that highly recommend question, is when they would score their relationship with their supervisor really low or their owner, then that was the number one question that would bring down the highly recommend question. That's just one example is that their relationship with the owner or their supervisor and the connection they had with them was correlated to whether or not they would recommend someone to come work for them. I mean, it seems obvious, but we would find little nuances like that in the data that said, OK, this is we're causing some of our own turnover.

4:38Yes, there's industry, outside industry impact like Medicare changes and Medicaid changes and reimbursement rates and all these things impact, certainly. But the greater impact, what I believe and what we found was often the leadership, right? And that they didn't know how to delegate. They didn't know how to really let go of things and allow other people to come up and learn new skills. And they wanted to own the whole process. And a lot of these a lot of these home care leaders maybe didn't have a business background when they started their home care business. Right. And so with our program, we're trying to teach them not only how to level up themselves, but also level up their their leadership team.

5:24And so I went back. I was I was beginning to say I went back and got my master's degree. And when you say positivity, in applied positive psychology, which is really the science of well-being and why some people thrive and why some people don't. I studied under Dr. Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, very well-known psychologist, and really learned the science of well-being. And that's what we've incorporated into the program to help people solve that always-on leadership. They don't always have to be on. that they need time for themselves. I write in my book, I talk about this concept of the lie of the either or.

6:04And the lie of the either or is that people feel like either I can thrive personally or I can thrive professionally, but I can't have both. They have to choose one or the other. We're trying to help people understand that they can have both. They just have to know how to go about it. And usually the how is the tough part. They know what they want maybe, but they just don't know how to get there. They're in the day-to-day of their business and all of those things. And so again, in May, that immersive that you mentioned is kind of the foundational, we teach them the foundational concepts of that how, of how to get free of all that.

6:41It would be great to understand when you started studying under basically the, you know, the father of this modern positive psychology psychology yeah you pan is uh is the flagship program for that that's that's where i went but yeah it's um um it's been around about 30 years it's definitely one of the most researched in the last 30 years it's the proactive side of psychology so often um behavioral psychology not to knock any of that kind of that all has its place but it's more reactive, like dealing with the problem when it comes up. Positive psychology wants to get in front of it. Right. And how do we do that?

7:26How do we help people thrive from the get go? Right. And really own their their their their outcomes, regardless of what challenges they may be facing. Can you give me maybe three ways, two or three ways that you find maybe it's yourself or, you that we can remain positive. And the reason why I ask is I think we live in a world that sometimes promotes negativity and sometimes people thrive under the ability to make others negative. Yeah. And sometimes it's hard for us, I think, to get out of the weeds. We gravitate to it. It's something we're all pulled to. I'm pulled to Dr. Seligman, who's the father of positive psychology, he's pulled to this.

8:14In fact, he became fascinated with this topic because of his own mindsets at the time and that he even proclaimed himself as a pessimist back then. I don't believe he does anymore, but that's kind of where his mind was at, where he's like, there's got to be a better way. And one of the key principles I think that might be helpful for people to understand is that to think positively, you've got to think about how you look at setbacks. Optimists look at setbacks as temporary, right? Pessimists look at setbacks as permanent. And if everything you're being faced with, if you can stop yourself and say, is this permanent?

8:59Usually most things aren't. There's always a solution or a way around it. Now, now I realize in death, like when we lose somebody that can be permanent in that situation, but how we look at it, depending on our eternal perspective or how we look at God and how we look at that can also be temporary, right? We can see that as a temporary, like we're going to see them again, for example, or how we, how we keep that kind of perspective. And so I think optimists get kind of a bad rap sometimes. like we think of them they're all optimists aren't realists actually optimists can be realists as well as being optimist because all they're looking at they're looking at these setbacks is like this is just temporary we're going to figure this out in positive psychology we call it we use this term called self-efficacy and it's a fancy term for saying i believe i can figure this out that I can get around this.

9:57Entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs are wonderful optimists because they see things as temporary and they have great self-efficacy. They really believe that they can figure things out. When I started my home care business, I had no knowledge of home care, like none. I had some business knowledge that I could lean on. And by I was 28 years old and most the owners in the industry, most of my competition, most of the, my referral sources were all twice my age, but I believed I could figure it out. And that's what created success for me is I had this confidence in this belief that I'm just going to figure this, I'm going to somehow it's going to work out.

10:41And, uh, and I saw that my knowledge, my lack of knowledge at the time was temporary, that I would figure it out. And that's a huge, huge, like self-awareness factor. Like if we could just be more self-aware of how we view current setbacks you know that's amazing no thank you for sharing i sometimes will tell people i'm a realist but i'm not really doing myself a favor and now that i think about it i need to rephrase how i say that i also need to rephrase how i'm thinking you're right we when i hear someone who's too nice or too optimistic we almost want to make fun of them and yeah like you said they're not real or they're just being too too optimistic.

11:24Like who wants to be so happy and positive? It's really funny now that I think about it, but I'm going to change my mind. You have convinced me today and I appreciate that. So I'd love to learn. I want to learn more about the keeping culture. Yeah. Exactly what that means and how does that help companies? Yeah. Keeping culture is something we created at the Breakaway 365. Keep is an acronym. It's our second element of our Breakaway framework and it stands for knowledge, empowerment, engagement, and then partnership. That comes with keeping your top talent. Those are four key elements to keep your top talent.

12:03And so we have this keeping culture model that reinforces those four areas through various, like again, positive psychology, science back. I'm more interested in why people stay in a company. Our principles are so agnostic. Like if I realize much of your audience, most of your audience are not home care agency owners, right? That's our, that's who we work with right now. But it's so, it applies to every business, every workplace that the more you can instill, like help your team members with more confidence. In positive psychology, there's a, there's a theory called self-determination theory. People are more likely to stay when they have three, these three elements.

12:49And this is part of our keeping culture. We help our members incorporate these three elements in the workplace is if people have more autonomy in the workplace, more better relationships and greater confidence. I actually, I use the term, so self-determination theory is the theory that supports this, but I use a term that we've created called the arc of growth, which is part of the keeping culture model. And that's just the acronym autonomy, relationship, confidence, that when their relationships and their autonomy is strong, their confidence grows. Yeah. So when you when you look at these home health care owners, I know a few people that own them.

13:30Yeah. For example, I have a friend. It was started by his parents. And then, you know, he's now in his 40s. So now he started getting into it. And then I'm guessing eventually he's going to take over their business because they'll eventually retire. But I'm curious on how, for example, his parents who are in their 60s, how they see this compared to him who's in his 40s. And then I'm sure you were in your 20s. So are you seeing different generations, different people from different decades being able to leverage this, but also their openness to wanting to implement? Yeah. You mean on the on the receiving the care on the actual workers on the on the culture side?

14:16Yes. Like the owners of these businesses or management on the culture side, like keeping culture and these other things that you're doing. What is their openness to this? Yeah. So going back to that arc of growth, the autonomy is that when you think about the younger generation coming up, they're very open. Like you're getting younger ones. Like I was a little bit of anomaly back then. And back when I started, the average agency owner was about 52 years old, which is how old I am today, 20, 23 years later. Right. And so that was back then. Now you have younger coming in. But what they're looking for and what they're missing often because they get into the grind of their business and they they they may not know how to create a positive culture in the workplace is that they're lacking the autonomy that they're really looking for.

15:08This generation, this younger generation, they want even more autonomy than I wanted 23 years ago and more freedom in their business and be able to freedom to pursue other passions, of course, and so forth. And so we try to work with the on the keeping culture. We try to work with with even these younger owners on helping them get all that back. And then once they get that back, the autonomy and they strengthen the relationships and grow their confidence, then they can share. they can actually do that with their team far better. Like they're in a much better place. They can't do it from down here.

15:50We got to get them up here so they can pull their team members up who are also so overwhelmed. Care professional didn't show up for a shift. You know, there's a, an elderly person who doesn't have someone to take care of them in that moment. The stress that comes from this, they're doing such an important work, like helping people age gracefully in their home. I mean, you can't think of too many other industries that have a greater impact on life, right? And so my goal with this program and keeping culture is to help them build cultures that retain top talent, that keep their best people and get them, these owners back reconnected with what, why they started their business in the first place.

16:33But they've got to get the right people as Jim Collins coined it, right? People in the right seats and build a better business to do that so that they're not always on, that they have a support, a better support so they can actually grow their business and then grow in their community and make a greater impact on the lives of seniors that they're carrying. I mean, I keep hearing it. It's, it's a, well, first off, I'm in California and it's very hard to even get from what I hear licensed or even get approved to do this. And there's like a waiting list of people that would be willing to do it because it is can be from what I hear a lucrative business, but also a very challenging business from, I'm sorry, regulations to, like you said, people, it's, it's a very, a people centric business that is also relating to people as they age, which is, you know, a sensitive, uh, subject in itself.

17:28Um, if I was to attend your event and I have this kind of business, what do you think I can walk away with in the end? Yeah. There's so much, you know, because it's so customized, even in that three-day event, is that we want to figure out what do you want out of your home care business? What is it that you want? Don't be concerned about what your neighbor here wants or what other people want. What do you want? Because everyone seems to want something different. And based upon that, then you create this blueprint. So by the end of the third day, they have more clarity on, again, what it is they want out of their business and how to get there.

18:09And we call it the breakaway blueprint. We, we help them start the process. It doesn't happen overnight, but we help them start their kind of first draft on this breakaway blueprint. We have other tools that accelerate that, that blueprint, but the blueprint has their vision, their goals, and not just goals. We hear that a lot. There's other programs that do that, but we do it in such a unique way to help them figure out, okay, if I want this, if I want to achieve, I want to double my revenue, for example, you know, in my business, because these are for profit businesses that, you know, when they're, when they're growing, they're making a greater impact on the people that they care for and the people they employ.

18:47So we want them to grow. And so if they're grow, if they had this goal to grow to this certain level, and it's, it's a big goal, they've got to be willing to drop a lot of things that maybe they hadn't even thought of before. So what we help them identify is what's the 80 % that's getting in your way that you have to drop to get there? What do you have to decrease and stop doing? Like maybe you're doing things too manually, right? All entrepreneurs are guilty most, at least most, I shouldn't say all. Most entrepreneurs are guilty of creating complexity in their business. And so what we try to do is help get rid of some of that complexity because that complexity creates chaos.

19:34Visionaries like myself, we constantly, if we don't have the right systems in place, we're constantly flying down from up above the trees, creating all kinds of chaos in our business, trying to fix things. And then we fly back up and we've just created a whole mess, right? And so we're really trying to help these members. And then that three days, help them get clarity on what is it I want? How do I get there? What are the right team members? What's the right kind of structure? to help get me there. So they're building a plan that's specific to what they want out of their business. We use technology.

20:08We actually use AI. We have some really cool AI tools that they get to work with, not just in those three days, but throughout our program because our program is really a three-year. They don't sign a contract for three years, but we're committed to them for three years to help them grow an exceptional home care business in that period of time. And that three-day immersive is kind of where it starts. We're pivoting from just three days. We're actually allowing people to start right out of the gate. They don't even have to wait for the three-day immersive. We have trainings in place that allow them to start right away.

20:46That's amazing. I mean, I've attended events not only from, like you're saying, the learning experience, the networking, and then you get to be around other people. And then you learn you're not the only one because I'm like you said, when we're when we're working in the company, we're doing 15 ,000 different tasks and jobs. We rarely get to like network with other people and it becomes everyone always complains about the loneliness factor. I like how it's not really three days. It's really three years. You know, it seems to me to ensure that their business grows. My last question is around AI since you brought it up.

21:19Yeah, I am very curious of how AI is transforming more traditional businesses. in the sense of businesses that normally lack the use of technology. And I'm curious, how is AI transforming this industry? Because we are a traditional, have been a traditional type of industry, right? We provide real hands-on care. And so I've really been on the forefront of how we can better leverage. When you realize you need to hire, it's usually already too late. I've been there wasting weeks waiting for decent candidates. If I had used Indeed, I could have hired way faster. So when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need.

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23:29Like we have, like, I'll give you a wonderful example that we're using in our program, is one of the biggest challenges, and this ties in with the keeping culture is when people hire a professional caregiver, you know, a nurse, an aide, whatever it might be, is that these people have never had someone sit down and ask them what their purpose is and help them identify that. And so we've created a tool that our members use with their employees, with their team members that help them identify. It's an AI-driven tool to help their care professionals identify what their personal purpose is, and then they can align the core values of the company with that personal purpose.

24:13So that person in the first week feels more connected to their employer than they would have otherwise. While this employer took the time, they had this really cool tool that I used that helped me identify a purpose statement for myself. No one's ever done that. No one's ever tried to help them with that. Typically, they haven't been in that process and they haven't been able to maybe afford to go to a Tony Robbins event or something like that. This allows the home care owner to be in the driver's seat and helping these home care professionals identify their own personal purpose. Too many, too many employers, we are guilty of telling them how cool we are, right?

24:58And what our purpose is, what our core values are. We're not taking the time to find out what their purpose is and what really drives them. And this AI tool helps them do that. And I won't give away too much of the secret sauce of that tool, but it's very innovative how we use it and how our members are using it to help them identify their personal purpose. So that's just one way. Scheduling, more efficiencies, care plans, like creating a care plan for a client or a patient in a home health environment. AI is great about like giving it, here's the information about this person. Please create a care plan.

25:39Now you've got to really be careful about HIPAA and other things that could be in violation there. You've got to make sure that you're in compliance. But it's changing even our industry and the way we go about our business. even the way we market right and the marketing that's probably the biggest impact that ai's had on our industry that's where it started was the marketing and now it's trickled out into the care which is pretty cool no it's amazing i mean yeah the marketing of everything now jack rib ai is like completely uh changing so much but everyone i know who's at least in this industry it's never that they really have too much of a lack of people that they can take on clients.

26:20They have a lack of employees, culture. There's a turnover. They can't take on new people because they don't have people to work. I'm always hearing complaints from them about systems and processes. They don't have the foundational thing set, which they can never really grow in scale. It becomes so hard for them to do so. And they're working 24-7. Although I've never had this type of business. I know many people who do. I can relate to listening to to their pain points and seeing what you are solving. But at the same time, many people today are going to be able to learn how to be positive, which is amazing because entrepreneurs, you know, it's easy to get negative.

27:06And at the same time, we can take a lot of the things away, no matter what industry you're in. So Aaron, this has been great. If you want to want to learn more about the events. I'll learn more about you. How can they do so? Let's go to our website, breakaway365.com, breakaway365.com. They can also go to aaronmarkham.com. There's two sites there that you can learn more about me. My book is on aaronmarkham.com, more front and center there if they want to learn more about the book. But yeah, those two websites would be the best way to get a hold of us. Appreciate it. Well, Aaron Markham, thank you for joining us today.

27:43I feel like I need to just open this business just so I can attend your event. You should. I'll help you with that, Daniel. I'll document my journey, but it sounds amazing. Maybe I can live vicariously through somebody else that I know who will be a team. Maybe we could have a reporter attend it, you know, just report on the event. There you go. But Aaron, this has been really great, and thank you for joining us today. Hey, thank you. Appreciate the time. Thank you.