MBA2599 Extended Interview: Yuri Elkaim- From Professional Soccer Player to Multi-Million Dollar Business Coach. How To Get Unstuck & Grow Your Business.

25:09We want all this change and new things to be exciting. It's like, get a hobby if you want exciting. Like your business should be very boring and do the same thing over and over again. So I think part of the issue is when I'm talking to someone, I just, I want to get a sense of their business. And as soon as they start using plural around things like program or course, I have a couple of courses or I have a couple of programs right away, I'm like, I know you're struggling because very few people that I know who've achieved massive success have done so by offering 10 courses. And this was the mistake that I made when I came online is I was just creating new stuff all the time.

25:43With Health Prenner, we had one offer for seven years. That was it because I learned the mistakes of complexity. So when I'm talking with someone, I want to get a sense of, okay, naturally what you do, who you serve, et cetera. A lot of times because I'm helping health professionals, it's like, yeah, like, you know, I help, I'm a naturopath. I help a lot of different things. I'm like, okay, now I'm starting to piece the picture together. They're not a specialist. So generally in a brick and mortar, for instance, people will fall into their lap from word of mouth, foot traffic, et cetera. But when you come online, you don't have the luxury, like no one knows you exist.

26:18So you have to really narrow down to become a specialist in one specific condition, whether it's migraines or IBS or acne or whatever it is, because now you can actually proactively market at yourself with a message that pierces through the noise. And now you get seen as the expert in that one area. And then also on the delivery, it makes it a lot easier. So that's one of the biggest things I find in conversations is a lot of people are generalists, at least in this, in our space, health experts. But the other thing too, is a lot of people, especially now, so when I came online in 2005, I started off, my goal was to live the laptop lifestyle, sell ebooks, 47 bucks, chill by the pool.

26:58It didn't happen. And it still doesn't happen. I see a lot of people talk about passive income. You know, they're busy with something. They want to create a second source of income. And I'm like, passive income? Question mark? Just to be clear, this is not like some little side hustle. This is like a major endeavor. This is like bringing a child into the world. There's no like passive child rearing. And I think there's this mindset around, oh, I can just do some stuff online, like put up a course, sell it for 200 bucks. Yeah, people will definitely go to my website and hit the buy now button. No, it's not going to happen.

27:32It's very, very hard. Even if people knew who you were, to get the vast majority of people to go to your website, go through a sales page and click the buy now button, unless you have a tremendous amount of trust with your audience, the percentage of convergence is going to be in the neighborhood of one to three percent. And then obviously you have other strategies like webinars, like, you know, and different things like that. But I think a lot of people just don't even understand what they're getting into. They think it's going to be a lot easier than it really is. And I tell people, I'm like, building an online business is one of the most challenging types of business you can build because no one knows you exist.

28:10You have to stand out amongst the noise. There's a tremendous lack of trust in the marketplace right now and have fun with that. But with that said, you can crack the code for sure. And it will be the most worthwhile thing you ever do. Because if you want time and location freedom, if you want autonomy, there's nothing else that can provide that in this type of format. But it's hard. And so I think just resetting expectations is what I end up doing for a lot of people is, you know, through questioning, just getting to recognize that like, it would just be a lot easier to just keep seeing patients all day long.

28:42Like, I mean, why even do this? Right? Like really get them to question their motivations because they have to have that motivation because there will be moments, many moments where you're like, why am I doing this? This is too hard. I'm just going to throw in the towel. But in those moments you want to give up, you have to remember why you started. And I think if you're just after passive income, it's not going to happen. I love that you mentioned this whole myth of passive income because I recently went to a conference, really amazing conference, but the majority of the audience were kind of digital nomad people chasing that passive income.

29:16Yeah. And I was just having side conversations with them. I was trying to actually just gather intel to know how to tweak my talk that I'll be giving later in the day. and what I just kind of wanted to say to them is like instead of you just like living this lifestyle where like you're struggling financially you're trying you're moving to a country so the cost of living is much cheaper you're missing your family and friends or you're not really like winning in your business why don't you just like take it seriously work hard and then not work for six weeks out of the year and enjoy the beach like yeah how about that idea yeah you could how many how many people that we know like have moved to bali to live like the digital nomad lifestyle right or like go to new york raise your standards yeah if you can make it there you can make it anywhere yeah exactly or city or wherever i did i moved to new york when i became a full-time entrepreneur not because i was like oh this is where i'm gonna make all the money i just knew everybody was chasing their dream in new york and i wanted to be around that energy i wanted to be a part of that scene i knew i was going to meet some people that are doing interesting things i was so poor in new York.

30:22Like I was going to wine and cheese events just to, you know, have dinner. Right. But I got so much other pieces of value from that experience. So I love the fact that you're questioning this kind of idea and giving them some other things to consider, because you're going to spend the time anyway to build the business. You're going to make the effort. You're going to go through the whole emotional anguish of it all. You might as well go all in. Why are you trying to like make this, happen with like 10 hours of work a week. It doesn't really compute in the real world. And I love the idea of focus, just focusing on one product.

30:59We've heard so many stories, Steve Jobs cutting all the Apple products when he came back to Apple and all that. But it allows you to really create a better, valuable product when you just have one to focus on, which is a great tip. I love that. But again, I share a lot of this because I made so many mistakes. I didn't know better when I started my business. I thought, well, if I could create a lot of stuff that will cast a wider net and more people would want it. Only to realize that when you have a hundred SKUs, whether it was courses, supplements, or whatever that we had, you can't optimize all that stuff.

31:29And it's like, you're not going to help everyone anyways. So like, you might as well focus on one thing and drill as deep as you possibly can. And again, in our space, I was telling my clients on Monday, as an example, like there's 33 million Americans who suffer with migraines, like several times a week. You couldn't even live 10 lifetimes and serve half of them. Like the markets that our people are serving are so big that even if they just did one thing to that one single target market, they could build eight and nine figure businesses in this lifetime. But the challenge, they run into roadblocks.

32:01Like, for instance, people aren't buying their stuff, whether that's from a website or if they're coaching and charging higher ticket and they're on the phone to people, people are saying, no, it's too expensive. And they think, well, now I have to offer something lower price to appease those people. It's like, no, you just have to skill up. So it's like real deep, become as good as you possibly can do the one thing and understand that with that one thing and that one thing alone, you have like no idea how many millions of dollars per month you could generate from or in the service of this market.

32:34And it's not going to come from like this and like this whole ascension funnel of like$7 and trip wires and upsell floors. I did all of that in my business. The moment where I was like, I'm never doing this again, we had a cookbook that we were launching many years ago. And it was a free plus shipping offer. We've seen those, right? So you pay nothing except for the shipping and then you go through this whole upsell sequence. So we had nine different upsell flows. So like nine different possible pathways after the checkout page. Each one had four different upsells or different variations of pricing and kind of order.

33:07And all we were trying to do was increase the average order value from$18 to$22. you. I'm like, what am I doing here? It's just crazy. I would rather build this deal of having a conversation with someone, like sell them the ultimate thing at a higher price. It's just so much easier. So just anyways, I share all this stuff from like the lessons and the mistakes and obviously the ones that I've had to hopefully, you know, help others, you know, avoid the pitfalls. I love it. I love it because one of the things that sells well online are like tools and strategies that just seem easy. So like the common person be like, oh, that sounds easy.

33:41I'm like, okay, I could do that. And we want to believe it's that easy. So therefore we buy it, right? But the truth of the matter is, is that like, it's not as simple as people are just going to like go through and click and put in their credit card nice and easy. And one of the things I like to mention to people that do believe it's that easy is how often do you actually buy these things? Like once every three years or something? It's not that common, right? And the reason why it's not that common is because, like you mentioned, you need to build a relationship with people. You need to build trust.

34:13You need to become the expert in that niche that you're in. So people, when they are frustrated, they're not going to go shopping around. They're going to come back to you. So when it comes to that long-term thinking, how do you help an entrepreneur in your space to think, hey, you're building a brand. You're building a business that's going to stay here for decades to come. Let's not make short-term bets that maybe are going to hurt us later on. How do you marry that with, I got to pay the bills? Well, I think it's what you just mentioned. I really do think everyone should be setting longer runways.

34:50If your goal is just focusing on what do I have to do this week to make money, you're going to make very different decisions than I'm building an empire that's going to last generations. But I get it because I've been in both sides, right? So you have to pay the bills. And then maybe even as your company grows, you've got payroll and other commitments. It's like new levels, new devils. I do think it's a very important skill to be able to create revenue for the business. Because revenue is like, you know, they say cash is king, whatever. Revenue, when a company is looking at investing in a company or an investment firm is looking at investing in a company, they won't even consider a company unless you have large revenue as a starting point, you know, before they even look at some of the other metrics.

35:33You have to become very good at generating revenue because if you are in a pinch, what can you do? Like, can you run some type of campaign? Can you pick up the phone? You have to get good, whether it's the marketing, the sales, both combined, because if you are in a pinch, you never want to be without ideas of how you can generate revenue. That's a skill you can build. And it obviously comes with time in the trenches. But if you don't have that time, well, you have to make up and time what you like in skill. And if you don't have the money, you also have to make up in time what you lack in money.

36:04But honestly, when I hired my first coach, which was three years too late, it was still the best decision I ever made because it was$18 ,000. That was more money than I made in my previous year in business. I didn't have the money. I took it on two credit cards. I split up the payment and I didn't know how to make it. I'm like, I don't know. I still remember the pit in my stomach, but I remember the voice in my head and the voice in my head was, I'm going to make this work no matter what. And it's almost like, I don't know if you've ever felt this, where you kind of like, you're going through the motions and then all of a sudden you've set a new goal, like a new objective where you're like thrown into the pool and now you have to swim.

36:41And there's a whole new level of fire like inside of you that it's like, all right, this, all right, now we're going. Like, it was like, we were going a little bit, but like now we're going. And I don't think a lot of people have that. I do think there's a tremendous amount of value from being in those places of desperation because a lot of motivation and inspiration come from those times where you're like, I don't know how this is gonna work, but I'm gonna figure out a way to make it happen. So I'm not a huge fan of taking outside capital. I think it makes you lazy. I think it heals creativity.

37:12I think there's a tremendous amount of value in living poor, even as you grow, because it forces you to continually innovate and create. But again, without going horizontally wide, but really thinking about how do we optimize this? How do we make this better? Just as an example, we split tested a new pre-headline on a landing page this past week. We doubled the conversions just by changing the pre-headline. Now, if we had spread ourselves too thin by going multiple products wide, we probably would not even thought about that because now we're having to juggle all these different balls. So getting back to your question, you have to learn the skill of sales and marketing.

37:49You have to become good at promoting, whether it's through social or ads or email campaigns whatever it is. The second thing, because like, again, if you're in a pinch and you can't make money, you're kind of screwed along those lines, I really do believe. And again, this is going to be more for, for kind of like the service-based entrepreneurs. If you can go high ticket right away, you have way more wiggle room. So if you have 10 conversations with someone over zoom to offer a higher ticket service, like a coaching program, the likelihood that one of them will say yes, isn't too far out of like, that's kind of in the realm of possibility, even if you're not that great at sales.

38:27But to create a sales page and have the copywriting chops to even write that and then sell something for even one one hundredth of the price and expecting 10 % of people to buy that is delusional. It is so much easier to get better at having a conversation with someone to sell a$5 ,000 product or program than it is to sell a$50 product to the masses who are never going to buy. So learning the art of influence or persuasion of sales, most entrepreneurs, regardless of their industry, will tell you that sales is one of the most important skills you can develop. So I think that's where it starts. And then the second thing is doing whatever you can to think long-term, because if you think long-term, you will make better decisions and you will avoid doing things that will kill your reputation.

39:13I mean, like one of the superpowers that I have with Healthpreneur is I'm the only person in our space who's been around since 2005. I don't have negative reviews. I mean, I'm not perfect, obviously, but like there's no nonsense all over the internet about Uriel came. Like it's, it's for the most part, very positive. That goes a very, very long way. And it takes a long time to build that, but it also takes one second to screw it all up. So when you have a longer term horizon, so for instance, for us, we're looking to build a billion dollar where we want to help a billion people transform their lives.

39:46and fundamentally disrupt the sick care system. And I want this company to be around beyond my lifetime. And so for the most part, I'm trying to make decisions for the future while also having the infrastructure to take care of now. It doesn't happen right away. But again, if the vision is longer term, generally on the average, you're making decisions that will support that vision. And also it attracts better people. It attracts better team members who eventually want to be part of that. And it also attracts better customers and clients who align with that vision or that ethos, as opposed to just make money or get this type of outcome.

40:23So for me, that's been my approach. And that's something I really encourage my clients to think about as well. It's like, just think about this, what this could look like five years down the road. Like, it's going to be challenging over the next couple of months. But five years, you're going to look back on this. You're like, man, what a great story this will be to tell. I love the fact that you mentioned this, introducing this idea. why don't you get on a call with people? Why don't you do a webinar? If you do 10 conversations a week, you're going to have a healthy business just because you're going to learn more about your customers.

40:50You're going to learn what they want. You're going to learn what they need. You're going to be able to solve more problems for them. I even think if you're selling a product, even if you're selling a product, but especially a high ticket product and coaching is a great example of this. And I think the reason why, like you mentioned, the conversions are so much better than like send them to a landing page and hopefully they buy. You're building trust. you're building a chance to get to know each other in that conversation, in that 30 minutes, in that 45 minutes, where they can start to realize, okay, this person has their best interest in mind.

41:18I may want to give them a shot. And most people don't want to shop around. Most people want to just make a decision and stop worrying about this. And they'll just say, hey, okay, let's do it and let's see what happens. So it's actually giving you a better chance. One of the things I believe in is that I think that some of the best people at building trust with their audience are comedians like stand-up comedians and one of people forget that joe rogan is a comedian like he's a stand-up comedian and has he get netflix specials because he has an audience netflix doesn't need to be sold on joe rogan they already know he's great because they see him on his podcast all the time right or you know mark maron mark maron how did he get that part in joker right he's a stand-up comedian but the producers the people that are in the industry they know that he has an audience he knows that he draws a crowd like he doesn't have to prove himself anymore because he's built trust with the people that are making the decision to transact with him.

42:14So I think it's a good point, like where sometimes we just want to hide behind our screens and just not really interact with our customers, but you're actually making things harder for yourself. You can actually excel a lot faster if you just do the opposite and talk to as many people as possible. I love that. There was just a strike. I can't remember the company's name. They're a Canadian company. they started doing weighted blankets and it was a seasonal business, which is interesting. So I remember seeing this, this interview with them a little while ago. And so they sold blankets on the internet and two co-founders.

42:47And they're talking about how, what they just started calling all of their customers. Like, Hey, what do you like? What could be better? Tell me about yourself. They called every single one of their customers. And then they developed pillows and mattresses and so forth. And they're talking about when they opened up one of their flagship stores, they actually had a like a lineup that was like around in the shopping mall, right beside I think it was like Casper mattresses or one of the bigger mattress companies in the mall. That's where it was like empty. And this store had like one of the biggest lineups for a new opening they'd ever seen.

43:16And a large part of their success was the fact that for a product based business, like who goes to buy a mattress somewhere, and then the founders call them like these guys, it's like we're calling everyone. And then they were acquired by one of the biggest companies in Canada called Sleep Country Canada bought out by them a couple years ago. And it's just such a great example of kind of doing a little bit of a different thing than what most people do. Like no one's too cool for school. You'll get so much intel from talking to your customers. And especially in a product-based business, which can be typically more detached, I thought it was such a beautiful journey or a beautiful example of like what can happen with that.

43:49I love that, man. That's a good example because there's so much you can learn by just talking to your customers. I'm on my second screen here. I'm looking at your website, healthpreneurgroup.com. I recommend those who are listening, watching to check it out. But I want to particularly drill into, on your menu, you've got something called the Core 10. And we're not going to go through all 10, but there's a few here I want to touch on because I think those who are listening are going to love it. And they're the 10 principles that underpin the most successful health businesses I've helped over the years, is the sub-headline here.

44:20But this applies to any business, honestly, the things that you share here. There's a few here I want to touch on. Your success is determined by your systems, number four of 10. Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, I think, you know, realistically, your success is determined by a few more things. But generally, like if you have no systems, you have no leverage, you have no predictability, everything is relying on your time and effort and manual grinds. I'll use Starbucks as an example. So Starbucks, if you go get a drink in your local town and that's what your drink is, if you go halfway across the world and you're thinking like, hey, I'd love to have this drink, whether it's a latte or whatever it is, you're thinking to yourself, well, I could go to that cafe that I've never been to, which means increased uncertainty.

45:04And humans generally want to avoid making the wrong decision. So we look at Starbucks and like, hold on, if I go to Starbucks, even though I'm halfway across the world, I know if I order that latte, it'll be more or less the same. and that's a system, right? There's a system, there's a process for how they make their drinks. Are they the best coffee? Probably not. But even if you look at the behind the counter, when they scoop ice, there are three different scoops. Like light ice has a different size scoop than normal ice. That's a very simple thought process to say. Instead of us just guessing how much ice, why don't we systemize it?

45:36So across every store, light ice is filled up to whatever the level is, two ounces, three ounces. That's the level of thinking that I think most entrepreneurs can benefit from. And it's also like from a service perspective is how do we prioritize our service? And when I say service, I literally mean everything you do in your business. So if you send out an email, how do you send out an email? If you coach clients, how do you coach clients? If you do a group coaching call, how do you run a group coaching call? Like there are systems or processes that can be documented for how you start the Zoom meeting.

46:10Okay, start the Zoom meeting. Everyone's muted. Camera's on. First thing, get everyone to share a win inside the chat. These are all systems that anyone else can then run. So like in our business, we have about 15 coaches. Aside from myself, we have about 45 coaching calls per week. I don't do all the coaching calls. I do three of them. And we have systems for how our other coaches run their calls. Now, we allow them to do worth their magic, but there's also a very similar process. And what that allows me to do is step out of the business so that even if I'm on vacation or wherever I am, our clients don't need me.

46:46Like our clients can still make progress. So that's like an example. Or like even on the acquisition front, if you're relying on DMing every single person to bring people into your world, cool, like that can work. But if you have a system, for instance, in our case, we call it a perfect client pipeline. It's kind of like an automated webinar funnel. Like right now, as we're having this interview, people are watching my webinar. I'm not involved in that. I created it once. I set up the system, the asset itself, and now it runs on autopilot on my behalf. And that's leverage. And a lot of people, especially service-based providers, don't have the leverage.

47:20They work. They get paid for their time. If they don't work, they don't get paid. And their clients or patients don't get helped. So systems are huge, massive. I love it. Not only does it make a better business and help you scale and grow, it actually adds a lot of value to the business because I know this firsthand. I grew Webinar Ninja for 10 years, recently got acquired by ProProfs. But somewhere around year five, somebody gave me advice. You need to start documenting all your procedures and systems. How do you deploy code? How do you comment code? How does your customer service agent deal with a refund?

47:54It's like, oh, OK. So like I just got some of the team members to start writing down in Google Docs what they do every day. Then we refined it and we had a playbook. And then And eventually, before we were in due diligence and in the process of selling, we documented everything, videos, text of every single procedure. And this allowed us to actually have a pretty strong demand on our asking price because they can just go ahead and implement all this stuff and they don't need like a long vesting period. They're like, oh, this is easy. You just told us exactly what to do. If I have any questions, I could just search the doc.

48:27If I don't understand how something is done, I can watch a video. It was like so easy for them. And this is a company that's acquired a lot of big companies. So they're like, this is great. And it made my life so much easier because anybody who's ever sold a business knows that due diligence is like the worst process ever. And, you know, they learn about everything about your business, your underwear size, everything. Right. And so that made it so much easier because you're just transparently showing your business. So it not only makes your business run smoothly and grow and scale, but actually you're investing in the value of the actual business when you get acquired.

49:02And like Rob Walling, my buddy at MicroConf, says, we all sell eventually. At some point, we're going to sell that business. Can't do it forever. Another one on your core 10 that I want to get into that just hit me when I read it is you can dominate your market by being just a little bit better. Yeah, I'm very opinionated about this. I don't know about you, Omar, but like very few businesses impress me. Like I'm talking about like airlines, hotels, restaurants, like you go to a restaurant. I remember, so I was talking to my son to a soccer game a couple of weeks ago and we get out of the stadium.

49:33He wanted some food. So we go to this food truck and it's in pinatas, right? So they're, they're selling in pinatas and like, you can see them. They're in a little heating thingamajig. He pulls them out, puts them in a bag and gives it to us. And then we obviously pay by credit card. And then it's 18, 20 or 25 % tip. And I'm like, are you for real? Like, I'm not tipping you anything. Like, I can't stand this. Like, I just did the very thing that I'm just supposed to do in business, and I'm expecting a 25 % tip. I think that's an example of how, like, out of whack expectations have become for such low-level service.

50:08That would be like me having a coaching call with all of my clients and every single time after Zoom being like, hey, do you want to leave a tip? You can leave 15, 20. I'm like, it's just absurd. I'm convinced that somebody in their industry told them that was a good idea. Like the whole tripwire thing. And we have an online business. Somebody in the retail business came to them and come to my event and buy my program and told them, hey, just swing the iPad and you're going to make whatever X percent every single time. I'm sure something happened like that. I don't know. In Australia, everything is built into the price, which is nice and tipping is not as outrageous as it is here.

50:41But that aside, the vast majority of basic service, if you go to a restaurant, it's just you go to the bathroom, it's disgusting. I remember going to the grocery store the other week and I walked into the bathroom and I'm like, this is disgusting. And I was actually interesting kind of massage franchise thing a couple, a couple months ago in Scottsdale. And I actually shot an Instagram story about their bathroom. I said, this is one of the cleanest bathrooms I've ever been to. And that tells me a lot of the ownership of this place. Well, I was at a donut shop in Honolulu last summer. One of the nicest bathrooms I've ever been in.

51:16And it's a reflection of the standard of the owner, which is a reflection of their philosophy. Like we give a shit, like the small details matter. I think that is missing to a level that is epidemic in our society where people are phoning it in. We get dozens upon dozens of resumes of people applying to work with us, like team members on a weekly basis. And we have one of the first things we have them do is a test project relative to their role. and i'd say about 70 of people who submit the test project they literally phone it in with chat gpt you don't even change the formatting like so chat gpt i can smell it and this is like i think one of the biggest problems and the biggest opportunity is that most people in general are very average and their standards are low they have a very low like the way they live their life is just like, it's so subpar.

52:13And in terms of just enough, exactly. And the businesses are representation of that. And so you as a business owner going a little bit above, like I'm not talking about like rolling out the red carpet. I'm talking about just being a little bit better, being a little bit more intentional. Like you're in a category of one, like it's so easy because most people are just so bad. A few things come to mind when you, when you talk about this. First thing is, one of my favorite autobiographies is Kitchen Confidential by the late Anthony Bourdain, and he actually recommends that when you go into a restaurant before you order, go into the bathroom.

52:48If the bathroom's not tidy and clean, don't eat there, because the person doesn't take pride in the bathroom. You think that public bathroom is dirty, what do you think the kitchen's going to be like? So, that's very interesting. The other thing is, I did a whole podcast episode on this topic. I highly recommend every entrepreneur to visit Japan, because Japan gets this right. Their service quality is way above the rest of the world. And everything is so organized and so clean. I always say that the Japanese, they must think we're animals when they go visit us in our countries. It's absolutely stunningly clean in the bathroom at the train station.

53:27It's ridiculous how good the standard is. And it's because it's part of their culture and their pride. And the funny thing is that they also are a generous kind of society. One of the things that is kind of fascinating about japan i think it's interesting that they're one of the countries that when they got rich they didn't get fat which is interesting like they still are thinking about their health and thinking about not overeating thinking about the society as a whole anyway my recommendation to anyone listening go to japan you're going to be really uh it's an educational experience for us as entrepreneurs but lastly i find that this is in everything that we do in business that the bar is quite low and you could just do a little things to differentiate one of things that I did was I realized I need to be a better public speaker on stages when I go speak at conferences.

54:10I got some training. I worked with Michael and Amy Poore, a heroic public speaking. They're amazing. And one of the things they told me first was like, listen, you're going to make very small improvements because you're just getting started. But that small improvement, it's going to be so much better because most people are, the bar is really low. They're not used to somebody getting up on stage and being prepared and not small talking as it has everybody you doing today good it's great to be here in chicago like all that is this filler and it was just amazing when i had that first experience after being trained this is like a decade ago but it was like being trained and then getting getting on stage and just doing my my set doing my my uh my 20 minute talk yeah so many people came back to me like that was amazing like how much training have you done this is incredible who taught you how to do that i was like i didn't even feel like i was that much better but because the bar is so low just doing a little bit better like you mentioned, just a little bit better?

55:03Is it going to differentiate you? Is it going to allow people to feel like you're somebody special? It's going to make it easier for the market yourself. So I love that. And you kind of touched on this a moment ago, and I want to get into number nine here on the list that's on the core 10, which is business growth always follows personal growth. Talk to me about that. Yeah, I mean, I tell people coming into work with us, I say, and working with us isn't inexpensive, but it's also not expensive relative to what they get in return. I say, even if you make zero dollar, even if you made nothing in your first year working with us, it would still be the best investment you ever make.

55:40And I can guarantee that. And the reason I say that is because I've seen thousands of times who you become a year from now in this process. You become not just a better entrepreneur, but a better human. You'll be a better parent, a better spouse. You'll be a better communicator. You'll be a better version of yourself. You'll step into your power. You'll feel more confident in your skin, all this other stuff. And your business follows that. It's almost like you are the tugboat and the business is the cruise ship. And the more horsepower you can build, like you can put into the tugboat, the bigger the ship you can move.

56:15And so we are the tugboats. And the only way we can move the ship is by becoming better as individuals, because the business only grows to the extent that you do. And this is something else that I've, I think a lot of, I don't know if a lot of people recognize this, but some entrepreneurs, they're happy from like zero to 3 million, right? They're like, they like the startup and then they want to jump onto something else. But what I've recognized, and there's nothing wrong with that, but what I've recognized is like, for me personally, I do not enjoy doing that because I've recognized, I'm like, okay, I'm getting to a point, like I'm getting to my pain threshold.

56:49I'm getting to my pain line and I don't like this. Cool, so I'm going to get rid of this and I'm going to do something else. And then that something else, I'm also going to get to the same point and hit that same pain line. Not growing. So I made a very conscious decision a while ago to say, you know what? I know I'm going to hit these ceilings and I know it's me. It's 100 % me. And I'm going to work through growing through that because that's where all the opportunity is. And I tell our clients, people, humans, are your biggest asset and or your biggest liability. That means the clients you work with, the customers you serve, The ability to communicate with them or to understand what triggers you so you don't freak out on them or you don't answer like an asshole or whatever it is, or team members, the ability to have hard conversations or the inability to have hard conversations will determine how fast you grow.

57:39In my first business, we had two different people that I can think of. They were probably on our team for two years because I was avoiding having a hard conversation with them to let them go. You know, we all want to be loved by everyone and whatever. But I think I have recognized that for me, for our business to go where it wants to go, I'm like, I have to be comfortable having uncomfortable conversations. And I've reframed that to be like, the more uncomfortable thing is not having the conversation because I'm going to be more frustrated. That person is not going to know where they stand and performance is going to slip.

58:10So that is probably a growth that I probably wouldn't have had if I got to my pain threshold and just said, you know what, I'm going to do something else. So that's an example of how we have to grow through this. Another great example is sales. Like I think selling is, as I mentioned before, one of the most amazing skills we can all develop. And it's something that we help our clients with who are health professionals, not sales professionals, very extensively. Because they have this amazing ability to help people, but they can't communicate that in a way where they feel confident a lot of times to charge premium prices for a health service.

58:45and working with them and helping them really develop that skill and helping them recognize that it's them. It's not the words. Like when you present your price and then have to explain why it's priced the way it is, even before the prospect said anything, what's that all about? Right. It's like, where do we have to work internally to really work through that? So you can confidently say, here's what it is and just close your mouth. And so in every aspect to your business. Like your business grows to the extent that you do. And the other thing too, is that your strength will become the business's weakness.

59:22And so if you're great at marketing, your ability to find a different marketer, eventually a director, whatever, will be the biggest unlock for you because you will probably wanna control everything. And I say this because that's me, that has been me. Until you're able to release yourself from that position or from that role, you will continue to be the bottleneck in the business in that specific department. So it always comes back to us. Just so fascinating to be able to work through that. And I think other than having kids and maybe a really horrible health journey, building a business is the most incredible spiritual journey you can ever go on in terms of your own personal growth.

1:00:02It's just such an amazing blessing. It's definitely a hero's journey. That's for sure. I want to wrap up with a few selfishly personal questions. I want to, some things that I want to learn, some things I want to get from Yuri in this conversation. What was one of the most unconventional pieces of advice that you've received in your journey in entrepreneurship? Oh, unconventional. I used to work with Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach, who's one of the most incredible humans. And I remember, he didn't say this to me directly, but I was obviously in a workshop with him. And he said, in order to make more, you have to work less.

1:00:36and at the time i was like busting my chops in my business like doing everything it goes against everything that we're taught work hard you know that's how you get ahead yeah and it was at the time it was it was the perfect like where i was in the journey was perfect to work with them at that time and it just got me thinking like man like what does that even look like and then i started to think a little bit differently over time so i'd say that's probably one of the most pivotal at least that i can think of pieces of unconventional advice love it do you still play soccer recreationally? With my kids.

1:01:08For me, it's kind of like the Mercedes-Benz slogan, like it's the best or nothing. I'm kind of like that with sports or soccer. I'm like, I'm not playing in a men's league with guys showing up that are a hundred pounds overweight and they're going to tear their ACL because they're out of shape and they go for a smoke after the game. I play with the kids and thankfully they're at a level now where it's, it's a fun challenge. You can give me some advice here. Okay. So I've been playing basketball all my life, played pretty high level when I was in university and I'm playing regularly now because I'm training for the World Master Games in Switzerland.

1:01:39So one of my challenges is that my mind and what I think I can do is not the same place my body is. My body often says nope and I often just tell myself I got to train more, I got to just get in better shape, maybe I got to lose a couple of kilos and I'll be able to have a little bit more airtime. Am I delusional? Do I need to just come to terms with this and just enjoy the game as it is. What do I do, Yuri? Help me. I don't know, man. Like I want to give you like props on that because I really do think like I am, I still haven't achieved my best fitness potential. And I think a lot of us can as we get older.

1:02:18I think the biggest thing that I've noticed is recovery time is a lot longer. Like the soreness and all that kind of stuff. It's just like, dude, like half the week I'm sore. So what I would, from a mindset perspective, I'd be like, it is possible. Maybe it's at least close to getting to, like, could I be where I was 10 or 15 years ago? And I think if you just have that mindset, like anything's possible, I think tactically, two of the things that I try to be very cognizant of is sprinting. Because apparently, statistically, after 30 years old, 95 % of humans don't sprint anymore. And when you look at a sport like basketball, where there's a lot of, like, cutting and agility and sprinting, I think that might be something to consider.

1:02:58And then for basketball, maybe plyometrics, right? some more of like the explosive stuff. So you can lift weights all day long, but as soon as you're like bouncing off one leg, you don't want to blow your Achilles. So I think like explosive training, especially as we get older, becomes really important, especially if we want to continue competing at a level that's somewhat respectable. Love it. But I think you can do it, man. Yeah, I'm committed. Also love the game. So that helps a lot. And LeBron's a good motivator, given how old he is. He's still playing in the NBA. It's insane. Is that right?

1:03:29Did I hear that right? Yeah, that's crazy, dude. I mean, this is like a fantasy world. My last question is a little bit of a personal one. What is your favorite way to kind of unwind, not at the end of the day, but like maybe you're going on holiday for a week or two. Like, do you like city holidays? Do you like beach holidays? Can you get your head out of work? Or do you like to bring up with you like a book that you've just ordered that's going to help you improve your efficiency at work? Or like, tell me a little bit about like you're the entrepreneur going on holiday. Well, this is very fitting because my wife and I, over the past two and a half years, we've been building our dream home on the Pacific Ocean in Mexico.

1:04:04And the reason for that is because we've been to this one area about 12 times in our life. And when we saw what they're developing in this one area, we're like, we need to live there. So for me, when we go there, basically our neighbor is Hawaii. Like we are on a cliff and it's Pacific Ocean facing west. So for me to unwind, like I either put myself mentally there, we're actually going to be going in about a week and a half to almost finish the build of the house. But that is like, I've literally, we've literally built this house for this very question. It's like, when I want to unwind, I'm going to just sit in a chair and I'm going to look over the ocean and I'm going to enjoy whatever it is, dolphins, birds, nothing.

1:04:48and for me that is the ultimate in terms of tranquility and peace but also expansion because when you have this endless vista there's a huge amount of like creativity i think that comes from that as opposed to like looking at a brick wall in front of you and so for me to unwind like even where you know where i live now i typically will sit in the backyard and i'll just look up at our trees and i just sit there and i think and i love doing that so having obviously the winter come, you know, not too far away. We wanted to have somewhere where we could escape, spend a couple months and have that, that sense of peace and tranquility.

1:05:24But also I don't want to not work. Like I love working, but to have space throughout the day where I can have an hour to sit and think or exercise, go for a run, go for a lift. All of those are way for me to unwind. And for me, it's a lot of work-life integration as opposed to, I don't take weekends off. Like it's only a couple hours here and there on certain days because I love doing it. And when I feel like I'm a little bit of a pressure cooker, if a lot of stuff is going on for me, exercise, sweating is a really nice way to just kind of get it out of the system and then just go for a walk in nature, stare at the sky.

1:06:02That's typically how I want, how I unwind. I love this concept of something physical in the world, like, like a home that you're building that you can go to in your head and just you know you've been there you've you have that picture in your mind of the pacific ocean and that's kind of a nice way to not only motivate you through a tough time or maybe you're having a long day and you kind of remind yourself okay i'm working towards something that i've been dreaming about i like this concept i'm sure i've heard of it before but the way you painted that picture right now really makes me think because nicole and i just were in italy and we went to sardinia which is gorgeous where Nicole's dad's from.

1:06:42And we went in the Bowne coast and it's just like that cliffs and this is the ocean or in this case the Adriatic Sea I believe between Italy and Sardinia or the mainland Italy and Sardinia. And it's just incredible. It's hard for you not to be grateful. It's hard for you not to just wonder what's going on. What is this? This is incredible. It just blows you away and the homes there are incredibly cheap because it's so hard to get there. I'm like oh maybe maybe I should consider this now that Yuri's uh Yuri's painted that picture in my head now so yeah love it man for me like it started with the picture in my head now I have it as a screen saver on my computer but for I think for a lot of stuff in my life it's always started in my mind you know I had a sense of what it was put myself in the position and then I was like okay let me just put this on repeats over and over again and it's yeah it's great love it man going to your happy place.

1:07:36Yeah. Yuri, thank you so much for your time. This has been a great conversation. I absolutely love getting to know you even more, getting to know you a little bit better. There's something about you that I feel like is magnetic. Like you're really got, you really believe in what you're doing. You're really pushing to help people out. Like it's genuine energy, you know? Like sometimes you meet people and you feel like, okay, they're saying the right things, but you don't actually feel it in your heart. But I definitely feel it. So thanks so much for showing up and giving it all. Yeah, man. Thank you for having me and thank you for the kind words because I do feel that way.

1:08:08I mean, I really, really do feel that I show up as my true self and I'm just happy that others, including you, feel that as well. So I appreciate you. Have a good one, man. Take care. Thank you. You too. What a great chat with Yuri Elkheim. If you want to learn more about his work, his books, the type of business he's running, and to go deeper on those core 10 that we discussed in the episode, just a few of them we discussed, but all 10 of them are great. Just go to his website, healthpreneurgroup.com. I learned so much from just going to great entrepreneurs' websites. What messaging are they delivering?

1:08:42What's the impression you're getting when you hit the website? How are they packaging their offers? I go to the about page and learn more about their story and how they got to where they are today. So this is one you want to check out. If you got a nugget, if you got something that really got you thinking, write it down, put it in your journal so you don't forget it, right? And then ask yourself, what are you going to do about it, right? You're going to take action. Are you going to implement this idea? Are you going to consider it in your business? What are you going to do with it, right? Don't just be a passive learner.

1:09:10Take action with what you learned. That's what really moves the needle. That's what allows you to move forward. That's what has helped me over the years and it can help you as well. One easy action you could take is make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you get our next episode automatically and you're part of the community. If you're on YouTube, just hit that subscribe button. If you're on any podcast app, Apple, Spotify, CastBox, whatever it might be, hit subscribe so you don't miss a beat. Thanks so much for listening to The$100 MBA Show, being a part of our community. I'll check you in the next episode.

1:09:41I'll see you then. Take care. We'll be right back.