Speaker 1 00:00:05 Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt in required, where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100% inbound in your industry over the next 6 to 8 months, with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years, and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to up my influence. Com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to up my influence. Com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you. With us right now, it is bestselling author and visionary Aaron Markham. Aaron, you are the author of Onto Thrive. And, you are also. That's the name of your company as well.

Speaker 1 00:01:17 you are on the web at Entrer. thrive.com. To our friend that's listening to us. Just click around in your podcast app to the information icon, or click around on the you find the show notes. I've got a direct link Aaron. So we could follow along directly as we're having this conversation, your foreword or your introductions written by Brian Tracy. And the subtitle here is An Entrepreneur's eight Laws to Accelerate Financial Freedom while Creating the Good Life. Well, Aaron, it's great to have you.

Speaker 2 00:01:46 It's great to be here. Josh, I appreciate you having me. I'm excited to have our quick conversation. I love the quick fire here.

Speaker 1 00:01:52 So yeah. Yes of course. Well, tell me what the good life is. Where are we headed? And and how can an untruth thrive? you know, culture or mindset help us get there.

Speaker 2 00:02:02 Yeah. So I, I came across this term I just a couple of years ago when I was completing it at the age of 50, completing my Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at UPenn.

Speaker 2 00:02:15 I studied under Martin Seligman, top psychologists of the last couple decades. He started that program. He's kind of known as the father of positive psychology. And, that term, the good life, comes from Aristotle. And we kind of consider him. He's probably the father or the grandfather of positive psychology, because, you know, he talks about the virtues and so forth. But for Aristotle, the good life was the complete life and a journey. He always used that term eudaimonia as a term to say it's beyond just life satisfaction, but it's living a life worth living, and it's living, living your best life. And, And so that's why I use that term. The good life is it goes beyond just what you might think as far as life satisfaction, financial well-being or whatever, that you might attach to that. But it's it's the whole life. It's the complete life. Yeah.

Speaker 1 00:03:10 So what are then the tent poles or what does the path look like in order to create that level of, of, you know, abundance and, and, you know, just kind of fulfillment is probably a better word.

Speaker 2 00:03:24 Yeah. You know, and this book I wrote specifically for the entrepreneur, hence the name on to thrive, entrepreneurial thriving. And and so I can speak to that. You know, as far as like the eight laws, you know, that I talk about in the book, there's science behind them. when I was doing my capstone at UPenn for, for the program was when I first had the idea for the book, realizing there's some real science behind entrepreneurial well-being, we we think differently. We're a little bit of a different bunch. I guess you could say our drive is different than maybe the the mass population and not better, just different. Like we just have a different we're wired differently. And so these eight laws are all kind of more tied to the entrepreneur, although much of it can be applied to, to anyone, the entrepreneur. a lot of different people. But clarity is the first law. And for clarity, I'm getting really not just clear. We hear about you know, know your why all of those things.

Speaker 2 00:04:22 I really talk more about getting clear on your what I call your guiding truths. Like what? What do you want to be true about you at all times? I have nine guiding truths. My first one is my mind is at peace. Seconds. My actions reflect character. My body is in good health and I live by these nine. My ventures create freedom and I'm an entrepreneur. I have a few companies, but I don't want to be invested in anything that doesn't allow me the freedom to be with my time, with my family. Freedom to spend the time I the way I want to. That and so forth. Freedom of money, that kind of thing. And so clarity on those things. A lot of its self-awareness also is about that law, accepting where you're at as, as an individual, as an entrepreneur. and so that's the first law. There's so much into that first law. It's actually the longest chapter, and I call it the cornerstone law. It's really the cornerstone of all the laws is that you first have to get clear on those things.

Speaker 2 00:05:23 I love this quote by, Doctor Martin Luther King. It goes like this. It says, if you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, keep moving forward. And so I wrote this book in that kind of outline, just like that. So when the mantra clarity law, we have a crawl, walk, run approach to that, and the crawl part is get clear on your guiding truths, You know, the walk part is become more self-aware self-acceptance. We have some great science behind that and how to do that. the third part is what we call our breakaways. I use the term breakaway a lot. I love cycling and see in the background my office and a breakaway is when you break away from the pack from the rest of the group. And that breakaway is something we help our clients do and our coaching side of our business, to help them break away from from where they are today into a much bigger future.

Speaker 2 00:06:24 And and those that's kind of how the book's written. But the, the clarity law, that's the foundational Keystone Keystone law creates. Second, gotta be creative and have the space to create. And I'll be really quick with these because I know our time is short. But third law is grit, entrepreneurial grit. I talk about the five levels of grit, and the last level is calling those who are called their staying power is much more set in stone. if you're earlier on in those levels of grit, you're staying power isn't quite as, as established. And so that's really important. connections, relationships. I know you're really big on this. Josh went to your, you know, been doing some research on on some of your work is those connections. The relationships are really important. Number one contributor to wellbeing, our relationships. So many studies have backed that right. Our connections in work life as well as in our private life. Yeah. The fifth one's faith. Faith in ourselves. Faith in others and faith in a higher power.

Speaker 2 00:07:27 Faith in God. There's a lot of science behind that faith in God that, if we do have a faith in in a higher power, our our well-being, our ability to live the good life is enhanced. And I'm not talking just Christian faith. I'm talking any kind of faith in a higher power shows that you that your well-being is enhanced. So I'm not being at all, just, siloed in that I'm a Christian, but but again, I talk about other faiths there that any kind of faith is, is, will enhance your wellbeing that way. A lot of great stories in that section. habits is the the six Law on habits. And we talk about character strengths and they're actually creating virtues as habits, something I don't think people talk about. We talk about what we should do in our morning routine, all of those things. Well, in that chapter, I don't even talk about that stuff. I actually go pretty deep in how what would what would life be like for you if virtues, leadership, spirituality, creativity, curiosity.

Speaker 2 00:08:33 Some of these, some of these character strengths were just part of your day to day habitual routine just running in the background. and then the, the seventh habit is vigor, our health, learning mind and body, onto vigor is what I call it. But having that vigor talk about the Mustang mind in there and it takes over our body, takes over our mind. Kind of. Joe Dispenza his work is intertwined in there. And then the last one is agency, entrepreneurial agency, the freedom to to choose to take ownership, to help your team take ownership on your personal life. the autonomy to imagine, I talk about these pillars of, of agency. And I think it's really important in order to create the good life for ourselves, we have to be agents unto ourselves. We have to be able to have the agency to choose to have the autonomy your team needs that, in order to live the life that they want to live. And there are a lot of science behind autonomy. an entire theory called the self-determination theory that that I emphasize in the book.

Speaker 2 00:09:40 Anyway, those are the eight laws that help you create the good life of yourself, especially. Yeah.

Speaker 1 00:09:46 Do you mind talking about the home care industry, which I know you historically, you've done a ton of work in. I suspect that that's part of your background as well. do you mind sharing maybe what you do professionally for the home care industry?

Speaker 2 00:09:59 Yeah, yeah. So my history, I started off my first entrepreneurial venture was a home care agency out of Salt Lake, and I grew that to be one of the largest in the region and saw a need for data analytics, started, home Care Pulse a few years later. And Home Care Pulse has become the one of the largest brands in the home care space. and they, they're a, fairly large company in this space. Now, I exited that company in 2020, but I continue to operate in the space. It's like, home care pulse is like the J.D. powers of home care. A lot of data analytics, measurement, training, things like that.

Speaker 2 00:10:40 And so since then, since my exit, I continue to coach. A lot of home care entrepreneurs actually invested in a home care agency out of Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm a significant partner in in that. Golden Harmony is the name of the company. I'm proud of what they've been able to do. We've quadrupled their revenue in a matter of a couple of years, and I'm growing like leaps and bounds and wonderful team effort there. It's been amazing to see, their, their growth. And so I'm still involved very much in the home care space also, during the last five years coached a lot of non home care entrepreneurs. But I have a special love for the home care, side of things. And then we have an entire program called our Breakaway Program for Home Care Leaders. It's a very high end coaching program for for home care agencies, really, the CEO and the CEOs of those home care companies.

Speaker 1 00:11:36 Yeah, yeah. so I want to give our, our friend that's listening to us right now.

Speaker 1 00:11:42 let's think of something that may be given. I don't know if you were presenting to a room of established business owners and leaders who say, listen, here's one thing I want you to do over the next week or so. Maybe it involves their team. Maybe it just involves themselves personally. Anything immediately come to mind that you think might be a good activity or something to focus on? Or mind map or, plan?

Speaker 2 00:12:06 Yeah, yeah. You know, if, there's I mean, going back to the clarity part, right? Is that is that getting clear? If they don't have really what's important to them, we actually we can put it in the show notes. But they didn't just go to the website onto thrive.com. We actually have an AI, bot that we've created that allows people to build their own guiding truths. and they have to click on the Home Care Leader tab there. We've created it, but it's agnostic. It's for anybody. Yeah. And they can they can actually interact with that.

Speaker 2 00:12:38 And it's It's really. And it's all about just asking the right questions as far as what you want. We just know what questions to ask from a science backed standpoint. to help them figure out, okay, what is it that it's important to me? What is it that I want? Not just what I'm passionate about? What is do I want out of my life and what doesn't support that? And so another activity that they could be doing, you know, over the next week is look at everything once they are clear on what they want. Make a list of everything that doesn't support that, all the activities, all the things that they're involved in, any addictions they might have, anything that's holding them back from achieving their guidance and leaning into those things and achieving those breakaway goals is what we call them. and, you know, Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach calls it the 80%, you know, let go of that 80%. That's probably holding you back from really achieving your ten goals. And I would say that's one of the best activities to say, you know, let's let's identify what is it that I shouldn't be doing anymore as opposed to what I should be doing, and and try to focus on that first and then lean into that 20% that, that you're doing now.

Speaker 2 00:13:56 But maybe you need to do better or update or retool and so forth. So that's an easy activity. Have a lot of different activities, you know, delegation activity, how to delegate better, to their team so they can really be in their, what I call their their guiding genius. You know, what they're really wired to do. Yeah. as an entrepreneur.

Speaker 1 00:14:18 So part of I, you know, when you use the term breakaway, you use this cycling metaphor quite a bit. and kind of the visuals associated with that. and I suspect that you have some experience in this. Do you mind maybe just sharing, like, Why that is such a great metaphor for a business leader or business owner entrepreneur.

Speaker 2 00:14:40 Yeah. You know, I first got into cycling in 2016. It's when I really started making some major changes in my health and in, in, in my exercise. And my business grew at the same time. I had no coincidence, but I got into cycling back then and initially, you know, obviously for personal reasons, but I found so many business tie ins to that.

Speaker 2 00:15:02 One was the breakaway. And the breakaway is when a Group A pack breaks from the group together. It's usually best done as a team. If you watch the tour de France, you break it away by yourself. Almost 100% of the time doesn't work. Yeah, breaking away with a group is far more effective. Yeah, because and this is the reason why there's a concept in cycling called drafting.

Speaker 1 00:15:27 Yes.

Speaker 2 00:15:27 And drafting. If you can get right behind someone else's wheel, 6 to 12in, you know, or sometimes even up to a couple feet, you can benefit up to a third, or even sometimes more, depending on the wind. a third of your energy is saved in drafting.

Speaker 1 00:15:45 That's amazing. I didn't realize it was that much.

Speaker 2 00:15:48 It's a ton. And in business, when we have mentors, other team members, when we're sharing the load, we're not doing everything ourselves as entrepreneurs. We can draft behind other people. Sometimes we draft the people. Draft behind us. Good drafting or a good breakaway is when you're rotating that right, rotating that that lead.

Speaker 2 00:16:11 And when you're with a team, letting people rotate the lead and letting people, own different projects that maybe you would traditionally take charge of, but let them take it right and let them lead. drafting is a powerful, powerful metaphor to how we can work better in business and in life. You know, a marriage partnership, you know, it's a partnership. It's a breakaway team. You know, where you're breaking away together to to for a common goal, right. That you're trying to to achieve. And so very powerful. Yeah up to 30. So sometimes more than that I've been in some races where I feel like I'm saving half of it. Right. I'm just like coasting. Wow. Behind people, you know. So yeah.

Speaker 1 00:16:58 It it is, it's, you know, it I do when I stay in my zone of genius, when I stay doing what I do best, and nobody else within the organization can do what I do, you know? And from my experience, I'm happiest.

Speaker 1 00:17:16 I don't get burnt out. I love what I do, it, it it fuels me. I've got an endless amount of passion to do that one thing. But I'm telling you the one thing that burns me out more than anything and I start to not enjoy my business is when I'm forced to do things. Just, just I'm just not wired to, for example, get into the minutia and the details on something like that. And I usually.

Speaker 2 00:17:41 You're a visionary.

Speaker 1 00:17:42 Yeah. Right. Right. And I'm, I get I find myself getting resentful, you know. Oh yeah. You know of other people or just the situation I started thinking about, oh, you know, and, and and so is as leaders, you know, just how critical that is to surround ourselves with good people, to hire for personality, to hire, you know, for those, you know, you know, getting someone to be the yin to your yang kind of thing and, and and magically I just yeah, I just hope oh, well, look, I, I got lucky.

Speaker 1 00:18:14 I have a, I have a good CEO who's been with me for a long time, and she perfectly complements and is passionate about doing the things that I do not like. Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:18:27 That's key. That's key. I, I've always had great. I've been fortunate myself to have that kind of other person who likes, I guess not always, not in my first company. It was a challenge, but, but definitely a home care pulse. Yeah, yeah. Amazing. My executive assistant right now. Same thing. You know, it's, really, really important.

Speaker 1 00:18:49 Yeah, yeah, I love this. so your website and the book on true thrive.com. Obviously, you can get to the book, from the website. what else would you recommend our friend that's been listening? where do they go from here? You'd mentioned the, the AI, tool, the guiding truths.

Speaker 2 00:19:06 yeah, I tool that they can build their own guiding truths, a statement, they can create a statement from that. And it just it just asks them a series of questions.

Speaker 2 00:19:15 And then based upon those answers to those questions, it builds out a nice, a nice little report form. And, and and it's it's complimentary. They don't they don't they don't pay for that. It's just on the website. There's, there's several resources on the website. Obviously, the book is, you know, getting the book and understanding those eight laws, I think is really important. we have a resource tab. So if they click on the resource tab, they can also download some various tools that we talk about in the book. one of them is that they just want a PDF version of the, of the, the guiding Troops. They can get that as well. Yeah. We're very much a give first, you know.

Speaker 1 00:19:54 Yeah. I got to point this out to Entrer Thrive and Entrepreneur the entrepreneur's eight laws to accelerate financial freedom while creating the good life. you talk about, consistent five star reviews. You got a 4.8 on Amazon, 113 ratings. you know, and this is a book that just recently came out a few months ago.

Speaker 1 00:20:18 So you definitely have hit a nerve. It's a USA today featured bestseller. It's available on audiobook, Kindle, hardcover, paperback, And again, you can get to all of that through your website on thrive. Com Erin Markham this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for this. Thank you for the work that you do.

Speaker 2 00:20:37 Thank you.

Speaker 1 00:20:44 Thanks for listening to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up my influence. Com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt in or email required, where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100% inbound in your industry over the next 6 to 8 months, with no spam, no ads, and no sales.

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