333 - My Most Successful Mentee Reveals The Secret To His Success! Part 2

0:00The other day I did a YouTube video, and if you don't know where my channel is, you can go to Brucewhipple.com and click on YouTube. or you can just probably Google Bruce Whipple YouTube and come to the same thing. But it was entitled, My Most Successful Mentee Reveals the Secret to His Success. And what I did was take clips from the Pantheon interview. And if you want to just Google Bruce Whipple Pantheon.com, you'll get to the people in the Pantheon and you'll see his in full interview. you. But I want to give you some clips and then add some commentary around those. So that was part one. Part two, I'm going to do as a podcast, different medium.

0:46So it'll only be a voice, obviously. But I want to go through several other clips that I think will really help you and show you, again, for my most successful mentee, how that happened, what things might separate what you're doing now from what he did and the traits. So the first clip is basically on fixing problems and how to address fixing problems. So let's get to that clip. And I think that's something I did always. If I have a bad situation, I call it out and I take I come to you, come to my team, to my partners, and we figure out a way. Usually problems don't fix themselves. No. You have to work on them.

1:39Yeah. And left alone, usually they actually become bigger problems. That's true. Oh, yeah. And again, by not raising your hand early, you rob yourself of the time that sometimes if you had had that time, you could have fixed it as opposed to letting it become a big, big problem. This second clip was in answer to what separates you, Gabriel, from those that might not succeed? What traits? And he talked about communication, dreams, visions, confidence, perseverance, persistence, and integrity, all of which are super critical. So let's listen to what he had to say about that in our discussion on those subjects.

2:30What do you think, you know, be a little egotistical here. What do you think separates you from in this process that those that don't succeed?

2:41that's a good question i had some thoughts about that i think there are there are several things first of all i think you have to be a decent communicator at least so um like i said english is not my my first language my first language is a little bit better than my english but i think i'm i'm basically i'm a pretty good i'm pretty good salesman and a decent communicator i think that's a that's a big part because you have to sell uh your dream you have to sell uh the the vision the mission what you try to accomplish and it has to be tangible it for for for people they have to understand what you're trying to explain to them uh sellers uh partners whatever so everybody has to to get what you want from them so be a good communicator and then confidence in communication but also in if shit hits the fence.

3:38So you have to be confident. You have to be the guy nobody shares. You are not allowed to share doubts. The people, your team, everybody has to have the feeling that you have everything in your control. So I think confidence, even if it's sometimes not true. Yeah. Yeah, you're right, because when the shit hits the fan, if you panic, everyone else will panic. They'll follow your lead, and good leaders become calmer in crisis. That's not easy, and you're right, it is learned, and sometimes on the inside you don't feel that way. But you also develop within yourself a track record of, okay, I've seen this kind of problem before, and I know what to do, and I know.

4:32So you get, you know, sometimes you get an adrenaline spike when you get bad news, but that settles down when you get to work. Absolutely. So I'm always trying to be more and more stoic. That's the word I use if the situation gets worse or if we have problems. So I think confidence is really important. But of all, I think perseverance and persistence. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm a pretty persistent guy. So, yeah, so I think that's maybe the number one contributor. If you can say one thing, I would say persistence and perseverance. Persistence, perseverance, action. And I go back to the letters that were working that weren't working.

5:21The 14 LOIs that you got that disappeared. Most people would have said, oh, OK, well, boy, that was hard and it's all gone. So, you know, now this isn't going to work, but that's not the path you chose. The other thing, and if I've ever said this to you before, but you certainly share this trait that I view as very important myself, and that is to be punctual. And I remember you told me a story that you went to meet your father for lunch. and you know i could be off a minute or two but you're supposed to meet at 12 o 'clock you got there at 1202 or 1203 texted your dad and said i'm at the restaurant where are you and he essentially said i was there at 12 you weren't i left exactly yeah yeah so it's a good lesson to learn yeah yeah you had a good mentor in your dad yeah absolutely yeah yeah integrity yeah yeah integrity great point great point and what do you mean by that how do you how does that exhibit itself in what you've seen um in my first language there will be or there would be a specific saying but uh basically if you if a man give you his words or his handshake or whatever it has to be his bond yeah i think that's the most big or the most the best image i can i can try to project for anybody listening yeah so um if somebody says something he will do it and yeah you have that if you have the partners that they who will do that and you're also the guy who always does it I think you will have a much better life and much better business relationships.

7:17And you build that reputation. You build that reputation that Gabriel said this, and guess what? He did it. Sometimes that costs you money to do that. When other people would say, well, we can't afford to do that. But those are the times when integrity shows the most. Exactly. And that's the experience that other people will remember, too. They'll remember, you know, it cost him money to follow through on what he did, but he did it anyway. I have an example on that. So I'm following up on this habit, let me say, pretty hard, like you said. And a short while ago, I made a, let me say, not a terrible, but it was not the best deal.

8:03It was not an acquisition. It was another negotiation. And we had a handshake on that deal. It turned out to be not the best deal I could have reached or negotiated. But we already agreed. Or I agreed. And my team was furious and said, no, you cannot accept that. But I said, look, we had our handshake. The deal is done. We don't have to renegotiate it. End of story. And I think that's important to have it. And yeah, well, I think it's an important habit. I think it's an important lesson to those employees. And it's one thing to say you have integrity, but it's another thing to act like it. And in that moment, you imparted to them.

8:56OK, you know, he did what he said he was going to do, even though it was a bad deal, if you will. And you're going to have some of those. Exactly. Yeah, good. I'm glad you mentioned that because it's super important. One of the few things worth dying for is your integrity. Yes. In this clip, I asked Gabriel about what his biggest challenge was. And his answer was interesting to me, especially the way he began it. And then he talked about the importance of focus as well. But let's listen to it, and particularly the way he viewed challenges and the way you might view challenges. When we started working together, what do you think was your biggest challenge?

9:42So I thought about that too. And there were a lot of challenges and also problems in the whole process in building up the company. But actually, I cannot say there was one big challenge that was floating around in my mind. So it's, I cannot point out one particular challenge. I really can't. So it's, I think if you want to call it a challenge, it's to have the particular guidance to help you going this way. Because sometimes it's lonely, right? It's lonely. And if you have, I use the word again, sparing partner. you can call you can write and he will help you to to guide yourself he's not guiding you but he helps you guide yourself through through any issues that might appear i think that that was that was really important but there's no not one challenge i said uh that that hold me back or or and prevented me from going faster.

10:54I think the, yeah, I thought you're right. And one of the things that holds a lot of people back that you don't suffer from this, everybody suffers a little bit, but not to a large degree, is self-image and self-esteem is, can I really do this? You know, what if I call and I'm rejected? What if the banks won't loan me money? What if the people won't sell to me on and on? What if I can't get professionals? And I don't think I don't ever recall a conversation that we had like that. It's like, I don't think I can do this. And, you know, I'm having too many problems. You focused on the things you wanted.

11:37Yes. You kept your mind off the things you didn't want, essentially. Yeah. You can say that. I think maybe I'm a little bit gifted in this area, but I, I try to remember also in my past in, in sports or whatever, it was never a thing to, to focus. I cannot do that or, or it's hard. It was never, that's, that's not my nature. So maybe that's a, that's a little gift I got from my, from my parents. Or maybe it's a big gift you got. Yeah, maybe it's a big gift. Absolutely. In this next clip, I asked Gabriel to talk about what guidance I gave to him. And I didn't know what he was going to say. So let's both listen to that.

12:26So can you think back on what guidance I gave you and how did you apply it? Did it work? That sort of thing? Oh, yeah, 100%. I think especially in tough negotiations, let me say, in discussions with business partners that were not that easy, how to maneuver, let me say, a really complex situation. Your guidance was always, let me say, not for sure guidance, but your, I don't recall the word in English, your know-how, your, what is it called? The things you have from the past? Experience was the word. Exactly. So I think experience, I don't have a lot of experience. Well, you have a lot more now.

13:20But if you look at somebody who is three times as old as you are or two times as old as you are, he has to have a lot more experience if he was doing the same thing, basically. So I think to see a complex situation and maybe you had the same situation in one kind or another, 10 times the same thing, the basic issue, and to help maneuver through your experience, through these conversations, negotiations, etc. I think that was a, if I recall, I think that was the most time we spent on was complex situations and how to handle them. Yeah. Complex negotiation, how to handle them, how to structure certain projects and all that things.

14:08And I think there, your hundreds of deals experience come in handy in such a situation. And I think you helped me guide this situation a lot or these problems. Well, thank you. And you put that into action, which is kind of the most important piece of it. It's sometimes hard to believe, but you can always find more money. You cannot find more time. You can delegate, which is kind of like doing that. But I asked Gabriel in this, what did he learn? and in the mentoring that we did, what did it do in terms of saving you time and saving you money? So let's hear what his answer is to that. So how did the mentoring save you time?

14:57How did it save you money if it did? I think it saved me a lot of time. Also because you, there we are again with the sparing party, you're a little bit hold accountable on your process. So if you're following up every week or every two weeks or every month, whatever, you want to show progress, right? So sometimes we lie to ourselves and say, yeah, we do that later. We do that later. If you have the follow-up meetings or our weekly catch-ups or whatever you want to call it, you have to show something. So it saves time in the sense that you have a sense of urgency engineered in your life because you want to deliver something to somebody you are, let me say, you hold yourself accountable to.

15:48In terms of money, I cannot put a number on it. I cannot, but I'm pretty sure if I did it 100 % by myself, I would make more mistakes, maybe some more bad deals. And so I think it's quite priceless to have somebody like you, a mentor that helps you guide and maneuver through building up a company, an acquisition company. So I would say priceless, saving money. And in terms of time, I would say there. If you can, one phone call and an issue is basically solved or you have a work plan for an issue, and maybe alone you would have weeks to figure it out, everybody can decide for themselves how much time it saves.

16:44So I would say. Absolutely. And as I think back on it, you know, the process of where you were in that August of 2019 to where you are less than four years later, there's not many programs that, legal programs anyway, that can allow you to generate the kind of enterprise value wealth that you've been able to generate in that timeframe. never would have happened if you were where you were never would have happened i agree you know impossible so it's unless you play a lottery and the odds are about 300 million to one right yeah but yeah absolutely and i asked gabriel about how his dreams evolved over the time we were working together and then how he was able to basically create his own blueprint for adding acquisitions where he could copy and paste.

17:45And lastly in this clip, how as advantageous but maddening to some people this is, that he hasn't had to do any outreach now in his area, that people have seen how they operate, and it's all incoming. People calling him a very enviable position to be but as you get successful and a reputation for doing things the right way, I hope that you have that same experience as well. And I think the other thing I've seen is that your dream, your goals, have certainly evolved over time. In the beginning, I'm not so sure you would have been able to think that within this timeframe, you would get the hunting line from the bank that you have today, and that you could go and double that reasonably easy with some help from your board, certainly.

18:44And that you could grow beyond where you are now, you know, you would maybe have focused tighter geography, but now you've widened that horizon as well. So what were goals before Rue as well with your experience, with your success. And you realized, you know, I can do this, you know, at a continuing larger level than you have. 100%. And I would say I use the word a lot. Also, also with my team, we established and it's maybe not 100 % now the first steps and building blocks, but you create your own blueprint, let me say and you can adapt it on on everything basically if that's an acquisition if it's negotiation is selling whatever and i think now i understood or i understand um i have a blueprint and i basically can copy it to to everything and copy and paste copy and paste rinse repeat whatever you want to call it exactly and uh i think that's even to to a degree that uh a lot of even private equity firms here uh where i am and and family offices there they don't understand it they're not understanding what we are doing here and how how i do it that quickly and they're asking now us what do you do differently and um and i think that's yeah After a couple of acquisitions and you understand what's really behind it, then you have the confidence and experience.

20:21The sky's the limit, basically. Yeah. And now, as opposed to you reaching out, although you are still reaching out in some of these new areas you're working, but you end up getting calls because of the success you've had. In the beginning, that's hard to believe that people are going to be calling me to give me a deal. But you've had that happen. Yes. So to full disclosure at the moment, in our core business area, we do not do any outreach anymore. So there are people that are bringing the deals to us. There are persons that if somebody wants to sell, they are just calling us because they see our success.

21:03but they also see how we do business with a lot of integrity, with a lot of common, let me say, with a lot of honesty. So we don't try to screw somebody over. We are just fair. We are straight to the point. And we are fast, quick, and have a lot of integrity. I think there we are again with the, if you have the, if they see you are in, you have a lot of integrity and you are successful, they want to be around you. And I think that's where we are right now. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the last clip I want to include in this podcast is, I think, an interesting one. And we talk about whether this acquisition process is right for everyone.

21:56And then lastly, the one thing turned out to be a couple of things that he would want to leave in terms of what is the most important thing in being successful at doing this. So without further ado, let's do that last clip. I hope that as you listen to this, it helps you and that you begin to say, OK, I can do this as well if I repeat the same things and work hard at this. The well, kind of in summary here, first, congratulations again. I'm honored to have you as the first inductee into the Pantheon. You've certainly earned that and did the heavy lifting. What would people that listen to this, what would you leave them as kind of the final thoughts that you might have?

22:43I have to don't say anything wrong here.

22:51But I thought a lot about, should I say that? But I will. It's certainly not for everybody. And that's okay. Yeah, true enough. True enough. But I think if there is, like I said earlier, one particular thing or two things that are really important to two words to your success would be probably persistent focus. Yeah. Yeah. Persistent focus and action. Right. Yeah. You took a lot of action. the uh well good well thank you you know and uh you know i'm glad that we're doing something together here beyond just the mentoring is that uh it's exciting to see and have a piece of what you're doing um you know that uh yeah yeah good okay well thank you gabriel thank you very much so beyond the first video that i mentioned over on youtube you have in this podcast seven clips I hope that between the video and this podcast, you take some notes, you write down some things that will inspire you, you will write down some actions that you should be taking that maybe you're not taking or taking them differently.

24:09And success does leave clues. So look at these clues, institute them, make them your own, and you will end up, I think, going much further than if you don't implement these things. So if you don't know what to do, go over to BruceWhipple.com, take a spin around that between the courses, the coaching, you'll find things that could help you. But there's a lot in this video and this podcast that if you followed, you will do much, much better. That I am sure.