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In this power-packed episode, Brett Gilliland meets Brett Gilliland, the Founder and CEO of Elite Entrepreneurs. Brett is a seasoned expert in organization development, leadership, and strategy, with a remarkable track record. He played a pivotal role in propelling Infusionsoft from $7M to over $100M in revenue and co-created the prestigious Infusionsoft’s Elite Forum. Discover Brett’s journey, from shaping the foundational elements of Purpose, Values, and Mission at Infusionsoft to facilitating strategic planning processes. Learn about his role in developing Infusionsoft’s Leadership Model and the pivotal decision to spin the Elite business out of Infusionsoft, a move that has shaped his current role as the passionate owner of Elite Entrepreneurs. Beyond the boardroom, Brett is a devoted family man, finding joy in spending time with his beautiful wife, Sharon, and their eight children. Join us for an engaging conversation filled with actionable strategies and inspiration for entrepreneurs looking to level up their businesses and personal lives. 🎙️ Tune in now for a dose of entrepreneurial wisdom and a glimpse into the mindset of a leader dedicated to helping businesses thrive. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from one of the industry’s finest! #Entrepreneurship #BusinessGrowth #LeadershipSuccess
Brett Gilliland Meets Brett Gilliland!
Welcome to the Circuit of Success podcast The Circuit of Success podcast. With your host, Brett Brett. Brett Gilliland. Brett Gilliland, visionary wealth advisory.
Brett Gilliland. Welcome to the Circuit of Success. I am your host, Brett Gilliland. And And you’re seeing my big smile here if you’re watching this because I’m interviewing Brett Gilliland. How you doing today, Brett?
I’m doing fantastic, see, Brett. Although this is a little strange, I gotta admit. It is a little weird, isn’t it? Yeah. It’s fun. I can honestly say it’s the 1st time I’ve ever spoken to another Brett Gilliland.
This is cool. Same same with me, and I’ve been looking forward to this. We both have podcasts and and interview lots of people, and Somebody actually confused us for one another on LinkedIn. Yep. And we said, hey. Let’s let’s do this.
I’m like, should the Brett Gilliland interview another Brett Gilliland? Like, And here we are. But you are I’m a say you’re twice as productive as me. You know why that is? No. Tell me. You have 8 kids, and I have 4 kids.
Oh, that’s right. Yeah. So when you set it up that way, Brett, you’re supposed to say, I only have 4 kids. Right. I I mean, everybody else listening is like, 4 kids is a lot. What it is a lot, and and 8 is crazy.
So yes. What is your mix of age from youngest to oldest is what? So we have a 25 year old son, And I was telling you before we hit record that he and his wife were expecting our 1st grandbaby, which I’m super excited about.
So So on the on the upper end is 25, and then we have 15 year old twins who are sophomores in high school.
So Wow. In a ten and a half year period, you know, we did get the 2 for 1 there at the end. Yeah. But, yeah, lot of Lot of craziness for a a good chunk of our married lives.
But that was a fun day when you got the ultrasound. It’s like, wait. Wait. Was say it again. There’s 2 in there? Exactly. Well, with all these little kid we had 6 little kids. We’re like, okay.
I guess, you know, like, we already know what it’s like to have another little one. My wife actually went to the doctor by herself because I was taking care of the little ones. And we didn’t have anybody around to help us out.
So I was with them, and she came home with pictures of baby a and baby b. And I was like, what are you talking about? Yeah. That’s incredible. Well, I’m excited to have you, man. You are the founder and CEO of Elite Entrepreneurs.
You’re a company that specializes in giving $1,000,000 business owners the knowledge process and tools to grow to $10,000,000 and beyond. So we’re gonna 10 x these businesses that you’re working with.
I know you got a huge community of those people that you’re helping, and you’re an expert in organizational development, leadership, Strategy, and you spent 10 years helping Infusionsoft grow from 7,000,000 in revenue to over a 100,000,000 in revenue, man.
So we got some stuff to talk about Day. So I’m excited. But if you can, take me back to what made Brett Golan the man he is today.
Oh, wow. That’s that’s a big question. I’m I’m gonna I’m gonna assume the professional angle on that. So, I studied a master’s program called organizational behavior.
I got an undergrad in business. I grew up in a large family, not surprisingly, because because I have a large family, but, my dad was a business owner, and his dad was a business owner before that.
So I kinda grew up in In a family business, it was construction. I live in the Phoenix area. And as a teenager, I worked In the hot summer sun in the summers, I I guess I already said the hot summer sun.
Anyway, summers, I worked for my dad, and I was, you know, A peon on the job site, laborer. Go pick up that pile of concrete trash and put it in a trailer and haul it off to the dump.
And So I I did physical labor in the sun in Phoenix. And, as I got older, I went to school, and I thought, I I’m probably just gonna go into the family business.
That’s just Mhmm. Kinda what I knew. And before I graduated from college with my business degree, My dad felt like he should just go ahead and shut his business down.
He’s like, I don’t want my boys tied to this thing. And so he he may he took it off the table altogether. He just shut it down, and I I thought, well, now what am I gonna do? Because I that was the default path.
Right? Yeah. So he shut it down, and I graduated. And I I’ve never even done all the internship things that you’re supposed to do as a as a business undergrad, and and I just got a job in in Customer success.
It was actually at a Ford dealership in a little place called Farmington, New Mexico, and I learned to be very customer service oriented.
I had a business background, and and they thought I could Help them on the service aisle there, and I did that for a couple years.
And I was so stressed out with that job because it was just Angry customer after angry customer. 2 years of that, I I just said, I gotta go back to school. I gotta I gotta figure out what I’m doing.
And I had a a memory of really enjoying my organizational behavior class, which is all about the Organizations as systems and how they work, and and it was a very people first leadership kind of a a discipline.
And so I went to graduate school, and and, you know, then I got some jobs after graduate school. But, eventually, I found my way back to small business.
And I I kinda took this Big business education, and I and I applied it to helping entrepreneurs go from scrappy founder to capable business building CEO. So That’s amazing. Long story, but that’s that’s what I do.
And so now what do you I mean, I know you’ve helped hundreds of business owners, you know, go from that you know, your struggle zone into that Kinda what I’d call that optimal peak performance zone.
And so if you can, like, what what to our listeners out there right now, what what are some of the things?
Maybe are there 2 or 3 or 4 things that are the The constant theme that you saw throughout people no matter what business they were in?
Yeah. Some constant themes that won’t be They won’t be new to you, but maybe just another another voice out there saying, yep. This is this is the thing.
In that transition from Entrepreneur to CEO. Right? Scrappy foundry learns and does everything to Now I’m I’m building a team and leading them is that they have to figure out how not to be the bottleneck in the operations.
Right. They can’t be an integral part of the machine if they wanna grow.
They can be an integral part of the machine if they wanna If they wanna cap out at some point, they they can only take that business so far themselves, even if they’ve hired some people around them, If they become an integral part of delivering the value of that business, once they figure out that they have to step out of that And become a leader, now we can actually set a bigger vision, and we can build a team to go achieve that vision together and start to Organize work and and delegate that work in a way that gives real ownership and responsibility to others.
Like, those are that’s That’s the biggest thing.
I mean, there’s some other things you have to learn, but the biggest step is really going from that doer in the middle of all of it to Capable business building leader. I’m writing down some notes there.
I don’t disagree at all. And I think, Wouldn’t you agree with this or maybe not? But but one of the hardest things, I think, in that step, though, is if you’re the founder, you’re the CEO, you’re the leader, You’re the the janitor.
You’re the, whatever, the sales director. Yeah. It’s it’s hard, though, to bet on yourself sometimes, isn’t it?
And hire that person and hire the next person and hire the next person or do you see that’s a constant battle there? It’s it’s really difficult. And and I love that you used the term bet on yourself.
It’s ironic that you would use that term. I I think that’s true. But it it’s sort of like this This failure to trust that somebody else can take it. It’s almost like a a lack of belief that somebody else can step up and do this.
But it it really does come back to betting on myself that I can organize this work in a way that I can hand it off to somebody and Train them to be successful with it.
Or if you’re hiring somebody who doesn’t really need training around the technical aspect of the job that I can actually trust, That they’ll they’ll own it like I would because a lot of it is feeling like they won’t take care of the customer the way that I would, Or Right.
You won’t maintain the level of excellence here that I would, or, you know, they just won’t do it as as well as I would. So, Anyway, it’s it’s a lot of it’s a lot of belief in self and belief in others that holds people back from.
Yeah. It’s scary. I mean, it’s really scary, isn’t it? It’s okay. I’m gonna put my hard earned dollars on the line and and and and make it happen and feed another family and and be responsible for them.
And so I was lucky enough to to do that when I was 23, 24 years old, and I’ve I’ve constantly had employees. But I’ll tell you, it’s Still scary every time you keep doubling down and keep doubling down and hiring people.
So for those listening, you gotta take the 1st step. You know, just how even if it’s somebody part time, hire somebody and it’s a game changer, to help you get where you wanna go.
So what what are the steps So you are walking business owners through that are at that million. We wanna get to 10,000,000. I assume there’s your mission, your vision, your values, kind of that purpose.
Those things are all there. But what are what are some other things that we’re having them do to make sure we get to 10 x our business, And how do we get there as quickly as we possibly can?
It’s a great question, Brett. I I think, you know, we we all love the analogy of the hats. Right. Entrepreneurs talk about all the hats that they wear. Yeah. And and it’s it’s totally true.
And you feel the weight of it when you when you have all of that Responsibility on you, and and scaling is is a function of being able to shed the hats. Right? To to build the team to a place where you can shed those responsibilities.
Well, I had a guest on on our podcast one time, the one the one that we do, for this 7 figure scaling journey, I and I had a guest named Noah who talked about this in a really cool way.
He said And and they were growing super fast. You said, if if 6 months from now, I’m still doing the same activities as I was doing 6 months before, I know I haven’t given away enough fast enough. Right?
So, literally, the only way his business could continue growing Was if he if he brought up the next people to do the next thing and and to be able to shed those responsibilities to give it to So let let me back up and say, of all the hats that we wear as business owners, at least for a 7 figure business owner who wants to To go to that 10,000,000 mark and beyond, there’s 3 hats that you’re gonna you’re gonna hang on to.
You’re not actually gonna shed yourself of these responsibilities entirely, but all the rest of the hats, you’re gonna get rid of.
So the first hat is the one that you already mentioned, set the vision. Right? We gotta get total clarity and alignment around purpose, values, mission, strategy, right, all of that big picture stuff.
That that’s ours. We I mean, I I know a lot of business owners, myself included, who would love to, like, abdicate Certain responsibility. Like, I just want somebody to take that for me and never have to think about that again.
Yep. But setting the vision is not one of them. Like, you have to be the one to lead that and ensure that we are consistent. We’re we’re true to that vision.
Doesn’t mean that does not mean that we do it all our ourselves. Like, I I like setting the vision with the team, not At the team, to the team, for the team. Right? Yep. But I agree. Yeah. So, setting the vision’s first half.
The second half is about building the team, And we’ve talked about that a little bit, but who else would be responsible for organizing the work and building Putting the right people on the bus in the right seats to go achieve that vision.
And then the last hat, which is no small hat either, is called Get the resources. Another way to think about that is extend the the financial runway to make sure that we can, in fact, go achieve the vision that we’ve set.
A lot of us as business owners like to use the term, don’t run out of cash. Right? When we’re talking about that hat, we say, don’t run out of money.
And that’s that’s true. We we can’t run out of money. I like the the more invested investment mindset version of that, which is Secure fuel for growth or get the resources.
But those 3 hats, set the vision, build the team, get the resources, That that’s that’s you leveling up so that you can scale. And all the rest of it, you gotta make sure that you have great people in place to be able to deliver it.
Yep. And I agree with you on the getting the buy in from the the key stakeholders. Right? I mean and I think for us, it’s Working on the business versus working in the business.
So this Friday, we’re going as a team, and and we’re gonna go off-site. And we’re spending 4 and a half hours, you know, deciding our priorities for 2024.
And for, again, leaders listening that may not do that stuff, I I can’t Express enough how important that is is to get off-site away from the office, away from distractions, get yourself a journal, your piece of paper, Go think, dream, strategize about what you wanna accomplish in the next year coming up.
And then it’s just a game plan of holding yourself accountable.
Right. Constantly putting those notes up in front of you throughout the year. Don’t just put them in a, you know, a your nightstand or something or your your desk and never look at them.
Constantly look at them, hold yourself accountable. I think people would be surprised in what they wake up and accomplish in a year.
Would you agree? Absolutely. Yeah. And and all these phrases have been said before, but, you know, this is business by design instead of by default or a life by design instead of by default.
And it’s whether it’s organizational effectiveness or personal effectiveness, We all know the very most successful people out there are really clear about their intention first.
They know exactly what they’re gonna go create. And and I use that term very intentionally because we’re we’re all we’re all kinda making it up. Right? Like Right. This business didn’t exist before You started your business.
This podcast didn’t exist before you started this podcast. None of us had the thing until we went and created the thing. Yeah. But but, eventually, the thing starts to overtake us and and starts to rule over us.
And And it’s it’s things like you described. It’s getting away from the office with your team, cocreating that future, Designing what are we going to go build from here.
Here we’re here now. Where do we wanna be at the end of next year? How Are we gonna go align our resources to go make that happen?
So very, very sound practice. Goes go off-site Every year, every quarter, actually, I I love quarterly planning. Make sure that we’re clear and that we’re aligned. Yep. I agree.
So what when you look back at your career, I think a lot of us had these defining moments. For you, was there a defining moment or that risk that you’re happy you took? I like that. It’s a good good question for me me to reflect.
You mentioned the the 10 year well, you didn’t say 10 years. Maybe you did. I don’t remember the bio, but I spent 10 years at that company that used to be called Infusionsoft. It’s now called Keep.
And when we were at 7 figures growing to a100,000,000, and we we hired hundreds of people during that time. And we were trying to grow as fast as we could as the leadership team to enable our business to continue growing.
And I’ll I think Clayton Mask is the CEO of that that business still today. Again, the company is called Keep now, but He invested in our growth. He knew that as a team excuse me.
As a business, there’s no way that that business was going to outgrow The level of capability of his leadership, and by extension, our leadership team, and and ultimately, by the collective contribution of the the entire Team.
Right? All all the team members that we’ve had. And so he would say in our onboarding process to our new hires, I’m not the CEO today that our business needs me to be 12 months from now.
Like, where we’re going, the business demands that I’d be at a new level of growth, of ability, of capability, of excellence.
And today, I’m not that person. But you can count on the fact. You can take it to the bank That by the end of those 12 months, I will be the CEO this company needs.
And and he would he would constantly push himself to grow because that’s the only way that our business was gonna be able to keep growing.
And he invited the rest of us to do that. So that was that was part of me during that journey. And as part of that investment, he he stroked a check, a very large check at the time.
I don’t know that I would have done it, But he stroked a very large check for us to spend 2 half day sessions with Jim Collins at his Ave in Boulder, Colorado.
And and he would do stuff like this just to keep pushing what was possible for us and get us thinking bigger and get get outside help.
And that was so influential for me. I’m a big Jim Collins fan. You probably didn’t need me to say that based on everything that I’ve just been Sharing about how to help businesses.
But the principles in his book, his books about what makes a great enduring company And, you know, what real leadership looks like. We just put all of those concepts into place in an actual company and Found great success.
And then we had tens of thousands of our software users seeing how well we were scaling and then asking us, Would you teach us that scaling stuff?
I I know your software is about, you know, sales and marketing automation and growing our our sales, But we see how well you’re building your company.
We interact with your people, and they’re all amazing. How are you finding them, and how are you doing this? And and so then We started teaching this business scaling stuff.
And so it was it’s really in the process of applying what I learned in graduate school And and a few jobs to the situation of scaling the company and and learning from some of the best out there That created the opportunity that is my business today.
We we built this little business inside of that software company.
And then after about 6 years, I bought it, and we spun it out. So I I don’t know that I would have ever done this on my own, frankly. I I I didn’t have the entrepreneurial makeup from the start that many of you do.
But now I’m I’m so grateful that I’ve been on this journey and And just love love helping out that you do it. Yeah. It’s great. It’s great. Strong self awareness too, I think, from your CEO, the story you told there.
And, You know, I think it’s hard to have self awareness sometimes. And so what advice would you look what what advice would you give for the person looking for Self awareness.
How do I find self awareness? What process could I go through, for that? Well, from a from, I guess the starting place, I would say, that all business problems ultimately are leadership problems.
And so if something’s not going right in your business, You really need only look as far as the mirror. Now that’s not to say that nobody else has any responsibility in that.
But if you’re unhappy with something that’s going on in your business, It always comes back to you as the leader. And whoever it is that’s owning whatever you’re not happy about, that that does come back to you.
So at a very foundational level, Every business problem is a leadership problem. From there, as far as increasing our awareness, it’s super helpful to get some outside perspective.
I had somebody one time tell me, can’t see the label from inside the jar. Like, we all operate inside this jar, and there’s a label on there That that everybody else can see about us, but we we can’t see it from inside the job.
And we need people, Whether it’s an advisor, like, the valuable service that you provide for people managing their wealth, Whether it’s a a coach or a trainer or a facilitator or whatever that you use to help you see your way of being as a leader.
And because, you know, we’re we’re we’re like the fish swimming in water. We don’t if we don’t know what water is, we we’ve always been in it. And and it’s just helpful to get outside perspective.
So, there’s some mindset things. There’s certainly reading, Listening to podcasts, I mean, all that stuff helps, but you you need somebody who can help you hold up the mirror from time to time and talk through some things.
I’m a believer in asking great questions to myself even. So I I always say ADT, ask, don’t tell. And I think the more we can ask ourselves Tough questions that you may wanna ask somebody else, but ask yourself.
Right? Ask yourself that exact same question and and write those thoughts down. And And what I do, I spend strategic think time every Wednesday, 1 to 2:30, hour and a half, ink pen, my journal.
People probably tired of hearing me say that on here, but I I just I say it all the time because nobody builds a discipline to do that.
And when you build your strategic think time around things that you wanna accomplish, the Things that move the needle in your world, great things happen.
Right? And it’s not by accident. So do you have a practice like that, or is there anything you do that if I followed you around day in and day out that I I would not miss that this Brett Golan does.
Well, it it’s fun that this is the first time we’ve we’ve talked this way.
Right? We didn’t meet before today other than on, you know, connecting on LinkedIn. But Some of those same practices that you’re talking about are critical to to my success as a leader and and to our success in our business.
So I I have a a daily habit of writing in a journal every single day. I have, now we didn’t we didn’t talk about this, but a year and a half ago, I hired an assistant.
Changed my life, by the way, to have an assistant. It’s incredible. And every single day, I’m meeting with her to hand off the things that would otherwise occupy my time.
Administrative things, some of them. But As she gets more and more capable and works with me longer you know, over over time, there’s more things that I’m able to give to her.
And the more that I can push those lower value activities to somebody else, the more time and space I have to spend on things like strategic looking time.
So, whether it’s journaling or learning how to to delegate As many responsibilities as possible, more and more time spent on higher level thinking and higher level value Value activities for my business helps a ton.
Yep. So an exercise I I like to do a lot, and I’m I’m curious If we can just kinda go on the spot here and and talk about this.
And is I like to talk about start doing, stop doing, continue doing. And and you this, again, this isn’t like a Brett Gilliland original.
You or me. Right? But so when you hear that is I mean, is that a good exercise As you think people do, start, stop, continue, other stuff that you can add on top of that. Yeah.
Yeah. I I love that exercise. Any useful tool that’s just is gonna help you see things more clearly and not just get complacent in what we’re doing right now. Right. Yep. Human beings are such creatures of habit and very forgetful.
Those 2 things are working against us. You add on top of that Just the natural chaos that that ensues when you run a business. And and it’s a recipe for It’s a recipe for doing what we did yesterday.
Right? Just just trying to keep the thing going that we did yesterday. And so if we wanna break out of that and create New possibilities or or respond to things that are happening in the market in a productive and healthy way.
We we have to get out of the day to day. So Start, stop, continue. I I love those periodic reviews. I’ll I’ll give you a a new tool here. It might maybe it’s not new to you, but another one. We call it the ICE tool.
So, as you look at the the set of activities that you are personally spending time on In a day, in a week, in a month, and if you can apply this little filter of ice to it, it might help you see things in a new way.
So I stands for I do it, but, really, I’m incompetent at it.
Nobody else would do it, so I still do it. But I’m incompetent at it. C stands for competent. Like, I’m good at this, but somebody else might be able to do it as good as or better than me.
And then the third is I’m I’m exceptional at this. Like, maybe this this falls in line with my unique genius or my My native my native genius or my my unique capabilities.
And so this, you think about, similar to a start, stop, continue sort of thinking. It’s where should I be start, stop, continue As it relates to my level of competence around an activity that I’ve been holding on to.
And is it time to give that to somebody else? Because I’m not Super competent. I’m I’m incompetent at it.
Or maybe I’m competent at it, but there’s somebody else who could do it for less money than than it’s costing the business by having me do it, versus the exceptional things where I can add unique value to the business.
So that’s really the filter you make a decision then. If something’s comes on your desk And, you gotta make a decision on it. You’re gonna look at it from the ICE tool.
I that’s one way to do it. Yeah. Another way is not just It comes to my desk, but maybe just reviewing how I’ve been spending my time. I’ll look back over the year. We’re getting to the end of the year.
You talked about planning as a team for 2024, and I like taking inventory of how I’ve been spending my time for the x you know, last 6 months, last year, And just really evaluating. Is that the best way for me to be spending my time?
Then I can apply a tool like ICE or just Generally, like, start, stop, continue, and say, should I be making a change as I go into this next period? What’s the next iteration For me in my role that I need to be creating.
Yep. Great. So, it’s obviously if it’s big enough to go on a T shirt, that means it means something to you. So I think it says the best leaders build the best businesses. So Yeah. Let’s talk about that.
Let’s talk about the mountain. What’s that mean to you? So, we picked up again, because of Jim Collins, we picked up this Everest Mission kind of idea. You know? He he likes to talk about BHAG, the big Gary, I think it’s goal.
And so I I just like the metaphor of we’re we’re going for that summit there. When we’re doing vision setting kinda stuff, We get real destination oriented with our mission.
So we don’t want a broad, open ended mission that never gets accomplished. We want to say, There’s the summit. There’s the peak of that next mountain we’re gonna go tackle together as a team.
What is it specifically? So I like a very what by when destination oriented mission, and that’s that’s what the the mountaintop is about. The purpose or that bigger meaning would be the guiding start.
Right? You never you never achieved that, but it gives you that directional clarity about, Are we are we doing something in line with why we’re put here? Like, does this really matter? Is this the purpose that we’re up to together?
But the mission is very destination oriented, and it it’s my belief that the best leaders build the best, This says businesses, but the best team, the best everything in that business to go achieve that mission together.
On the back of my shirt, it says The rest of the story, it says, and the best businesses win. And and so I want all of your listeners to be winning in life.
And those people who win, whether they’re talking about their individual effectiveness or if they’re business owners, How well they’re doing as a team, it it really does come down to leadership.
How well am I leading myself to go create that life that I want?
How well am I leading creating this business to go have the impact that we want to to have together as a team. And so to to me, it boils down to leadership. I know most business owners don’t think about that first.
They don’t go, I’m trying to double my sales, so I gotta go fix my leadership. They They usually think about marketing and sales and, you know, partnerships, and all those things are super important as part of the journey.
But Looking in the mirror, I think, you and I would agree that it it starts with who am I being as a leader? How can I improve as a leader?
Yep. Lead by example. So I was with, right over here about, 5 minutes away. We’ve got an air force base that makes some massive decisions in our world to protect our great country. And I was with the colonel today.
They talked about the 3 things he looks at in a in a Wait. Jesus. Clarity of mission, multiple processes on how to win that mission, and then we attack aggressively. And, I mean, you can just feel it, like, when he said it.
Right? You know, sometimes people just say things. And and he said we attack aggressively. And so when you hear me say that, clarity on mission, multiple process to win that mission, and we attack aggressively, what do you hear?
I hear clarity of vision like we talked about. I hear on the multiple processes, I hear really good strategy. Like Mhmm. It’s not it’s not one bet, and we cross our fingers and hope that that does it.
Like, we’ve got, you know, multiple processes that we know Probably one of those things would work, but we’re not gonna we’re not gonna let it to chance that just one of them might fail.
We’re gonna have Back up plans and then back up plans and then back up plans. So I hear that, and then I and then I hear attack aggressively is like, Okay.
Now let’s go execute the plan. Like, we’ve got a great plan. Let’s go make it happen. We’re not gonna sit around and watch that our great plan just does itself. Right?
So, that’s what I hear. I love it, though. It’s cool. I’ll see. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit on the family and business side. So so what do you do to stay in the moment? Obviously, with 8 kids, and and now they’re getting older.
So it’s a little different than the diaper stages and, you know, feeding them and doing all that stuff. But but what have you done throughout your career, though, to to stay a family man, stay in the moment, enjoy the journey?
Because I know the chaos of 4 kids. I cannot imagine 8. What have you done, and what can you share with our listeners for those parents that are out there?
So one thing I’ve done, just very consistently is to get recentered every every morning. There’s lots of versions of this out there. I I don’t even know that I would prescribe this as the the way to do it.
But for me, I have to start my day Getting centered. And I I do that with prayer, meditation, some sort of scripture study or something that’s that’s going to Give me sustenance.
Right? Spiritually, mentally, it’s gonna help me. And then with the kids, We do those types of things as a family as well.
But this morning I mean, every school day, I’m out Helping with breakfast, helping prepare lunches. So, like, I’m involved with them and getting them off to have a good start with their day.
So we do a lot of family routines just like you have to have meeting rhythms and routines, even traditions In your business for that to, you know, build a great team, a great work workplace, we have a lot of routines and traditions to be able to make it work with, You know, it was 10 bodies.
Now as our older kids are moving away, it’s it’s fewer bodies, but the principles Rules apply. So, you know, we try to eat dinner together. When when 1 team member is is Doing something that we can all celebrate.
We wanna be involved in that. You know, when a family member’s off doing something in in sports or music or whatever they’re involved in, You know, I I go and support that. So how do I keep that sacred as a business owner?
And I and I’m not perfect at this. I wouldn’t I wouldn’t pretend to be. But when it’s when it’s dinner time at 5:30, sometime you know, it might be 6 o’clock at the latest, then I I’m I’m pretty good about compartmentalizing. Say, okay.
I’m done. The business no longer deserves to have my attention. And I’m a family man from 5:30, 6 o’clock until you know, as my kids got older, it’s 11:30, 12 o’clock, sometimes at night before Before they’re all wrapped up and done.
So a lot of family time, very intentional vacation time, rhythms, routines, traditions.
Yeah. I think that’s the toughest thing as the kids get older, and then it’s like, man, I’m I wanna go to bed before at least 2 of my kids, 3 of my kids are even, you know, thinking about going to bed.
I’m like my gosh. Is it keeping me up late out here? Yep. It’s great. What do you do to stay a student of the game, Brett? Well, I listen to podcasts. I read books. I go to conferences. I just went to a conference last week.
Thankfully, in in my line of work, there’s a good overlap between getting out and And talking with business owners and being in in places where they congregate are often where there’s learning going on.
So Yeah. Last week, I got to be at a conference where James Clear was speaking on a topic, atomic habits.
Yeah. And even with the master’s degree in organizational behavior and knowing Really, all the the principles that he taught, it’s fun to it’s fun to hear somebody else’s perspective on it and Yep.
In a way to simplify something that Maybe I’ve known in practice for a long time. It just keeps me sharp. So, yeah, those are ways that I try to stay sharp. Love it.
Last couple questions here, but fear is a question I always like to ask people on all these podcasts is how many of the fears That you have put in your mind have actually blown up to the magnitude you put them in your mind to be.
That that is a very insightful question because I think you know the answer at least 99% of the time is it’s never as big as we fear.
Just just as Our our brains are masterful at making A terrible. A story. Powerful and terrible. Yeah. Powerful and terrible. Big scary stories. I can’t do that. And and a lot of a lot of what holds us back is us for sure.
Yeah. Yep. What, what would you tell yourself? If you look at your career over the last, You know, whatever 20, 25 years, 30 years, what would what advice would you give, young Brett Gilliland?
Young Brett Gilliland. I would give myself the advice of not not thinking that there’s a certain path that you have to follow.
You know, I think growing up, it’s like you get to to to school, and then you go to college, and then you do this, and then you like, there was At least for me, it felt very much like there’s this conveyor belt of progression that everybody is supposed to hop on.
And it and what I love about Small business ownership and and those gutsy and crazy entrepreneurs out there, they said, no.
I’m I’m doing my own thing. And and I wish I had Figured that out sooner, for myself. I would tell my younger self, it’s not as scary as it sounds to go Make your own way. In fact Yeah. In a lot of ways, it’s it’s much more secure.
Instead of putting your own livelihood in somebody else’s hands, you kinda take that yourself. And While it’s scary, it’s also the most controlled situation. You know? Yep. Bet on yourself as we talked about. Last question for you.
I’ve never asked says, but it popped in my mind earlier today. So I put it on this piece of paper, and I said, what social media, do you like the best and why? I like LinkedIn the best just because I I play in this business world.
Yeah. You know, I I should probably like some of those more trendy ones better because then, you know, the word would get out there more if I did more TikToks Whatever.
But Yeah. Yeah. I like LinkedIn the best. I’ve I’m I’m engaged by the conversations, Meeting people like you, seeing great content that goes out there.
So, yeah, LinkedIn’s my favorite. Awesome. Well, I know you’ve got a community of 7 figures people go 1 to, 10,000,000. So where do our listeners find more of your community?
Where they find more of you? And, what can they do to connect? Thanks. Well, I can’t use your handle on LinkedIn because you already have it. So I I I picked 1 called built to last champ, the number 2, like Jim Collins. Right?
Built, the number 2, last Champ, this long, awkward handle for LinkedIn. That’s my LinkedIn. Our website is Grow With elite. com. So it’s all spelled out grow with elite. com, and we have a podcast called Elite Entrepreneur’s Podcast.
Awesome. We’ll put all that in the show notes. And, Brett, it’s been awesome, man. It’s been absolutely awesome having you. I was excited about today, And, it’s been a lot of fun.
And and the great thing is I just took a page of notes and a ton of takeaways, so it made it even better than I already knew it would be. It was fun. Thanks for having me on your show, Brett.
