The Power of Growth Mindset: Why Successful Entrepreneurs Focus on Strengths and Community

Free Agent Podcast, General, Veterans Franchising

The Power of Growth Mindset: Why Successful Entrepreneurs Focus on Strengths and Community

Ever catch yourself daydreaming about ditching the corporate grind and finally calling the shots in your own business? If you’re itching for more than just “freedom”—if you want total command of your time, your money, and your future—stick around. I’ve got some game-changing ways to help you swap burnout for balance, turn your talents into a thriving business, and show you how a growth mindset can unlock the doors you didn’t even know existed. Ready to see how it’s actually done? Let’s get into it.

My special guest is Andy Weins

Andy Weins is an established entrepreneur with a diverse background spanning military service, corporate roles, and small business ownership. As the founder of Camel Crew Responsible Junk Removal, Andy has firsthand experience in both franchising and independent business operations. He is also an author, with his book “Words Fucking Matter” focusing on neuro-linguistic programming, and is working on a second book dedicated to financial literacy for business owners. In addition to running his own companies, Andy serves as a fractional CFO, guiding entrepreneurs through the complexities of business finances and operational strategy. His practical knowledge and direct approach have made him a trusted resource for individuals transitioning from corporate careers to entrepreneurship, particularly those seeking to leverage personal strengths and develop a sustainable, growth-oriented mindset.

Go in with the exit in mind—strategically build your business from day one so you have options and freedom when opportunity knocks.

In this episode, you will be able to:

Discover how transitioning from corporate life to entrepreneurship can unlock unexpected opportunities and reshape your future.
Explore the benefits of franchising that can fast-track your business success while reducing common startup risks.
Uncover proven strategies for achieving financial freedom that give you control over your money and your time.
Learn to leverage your personal strengths in business to stand out and build a brand that feels genuinely you.
Embrace the importance of a growth mindset to overcome challenges and keep pushing your business forward no matter what.

Transitioning Corporate Life Opportunities

Moving from a corporate career to entrepreneurship offers a chance to gain control and pursue your passions. This shift allows individuals to build a business aligned with their values and strengths rather than fitting into rigid corporate structures. Embracing this transition involves learning new skills, adopting a proactive mindset, and preparing for both freedom and responsibility.

The resources mentioned in this episode are:

Read Words Fucking Matter by Andy Weins for insights on neuro-linguistic programming and intentional language in business.
Pre-order or look out for Andy Weins’ upcoming book Numbers Matter, focused on understanding and leveraging business financials.
Check out 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan for strategies on prioritization and scaling your business.
Read Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell to learn about automating, delegating, and eliminating tasks to reclaim your time as an entrepreneur.
Explore joining business peer groups such as Vistage CEO Roundtable, MMAC Roundtable, or Titan 100 for networking, mentorship, and support from other growth-minded entrepreneurs.
Tune in to the Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz for real stories of self-employment and business ownership. Contact Meg Schmitz to schedule a free, no-obligation call and get insider insights on franchise opportunities. Use the form at the FREE Agent Podcast if you’d like to be considered as a guest on the Show!

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Click to Take the Leap into the full interview transcript of the Free Agent Podcast, Episode 7.13, with Meg Schmitz and her guest, Andy Weins

Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guest: Andy Wines, Entrepreneur, Author, and Fractional CFO

Meg
Alright everybody. Hello and welcome to or welcome back to my podcast. It’s called the Free Agent. My name is Meg Schmitz. The discussion here is all about free agency and taking control over your financial future. The mission of my show is to share inspiring conversations with real people who took the leap into self employment, business ownership, franchising and freedom. And Andy Wines is my guest today and this is just going to be perfect.

From corporate refugees and executives tired of the desk job to entrepreneurs and investors looking to share camaraderie and inspiration through their own business journey, my podcast aims a spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown, took control of their destiny and became their own boss. And Andy Wines is pretty much the epitome of a free agent.

And so the last time I had you on was season one and we’re in season seven, almost 200 episodes now. So I think a little bit has shifted for you and I always enjoy hearing your point of view. My husband gets a big kick out of your LinkedIn posts, so he’s following along as well. So thank you for taking the time to join me today.

Andy
Appreciate being on here, Meg.

Meg
So Andy, what’s up? What’s new? You’ve got a book out since last time or maybe more—Words Fucking Matter. Because they do. And you are a wordsmith and you I think are one of the few people who really understand and leverage the English language.

Andy
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Yeah. So since season one, there’s been a lot. I mean there was a pandemic and other things and actually when I was still on your show, I was part of a franchise. So I’d done the franchise route and I did that and I’m a huge fan of some franchises and not a huge… not all franchises are the same.

So I will preface that. I’m a fourth generation entrepreneur, which means I come from a long line of unemployable men. Primarily I have two brothers and a sister. She is very employed and the three of us boys have a total of zero jobs. So I come from this entrepreneurial mindset and my father, grandfather, both grandfathers and great grandfathers all around the age of 30 realized that they were not a good fit for the rest of society and world and having a job.

And I did all the things. I’ve been in the military 21 years. I worked for small businesses growing up. I worked for large corporations like Best Buy, UPS, WM. So I’ve done, you know, the duality, right? The military, the small business, the large corporations. And over time I realized that what I wanted to do was build my own company. And I fantasized about it as a kid. What would my company look like someday regardless of the discipline, what would the culture be? What would the feel of the company would be.

And now I’m blessed that with Camel Crew Responsible Junk Removal, I’m able to be that cultural leader every day. And so you ask what has changed in the last seven years? Got another franchise, I sat through a two year non compete. I started other businesses during the non compete because I’m addicted to entrepreneurship. And what I realized along the way was it comes down to love. You gotta love what you do, the industry, the discipline.

And I do junk removal. Like let’s. I want to preface that a lot of people waste recycling. Junk removal is not sexy, it’s not enjoyable and I love it. My great grandfather owned a scrapyard, so it’s probably in my veins. I love finding value in the things that are discarded by others. So for me I love that discipline.

You know, I know you come from the haircutting world, right? I, I barely go to, I go to my barber every week. I go in, I sit down, he does my cut, I give him cash, I leave. I the 20 minutes I’m in there is enough. So the fact that other people are like I, I love having you know, salons and you know, six or seven of them and 50 employees and like it sounds terrible to me.

And so that’s the beautiful thing about entrepreneurship is it? It is an individual effort. You get to decide what you love to do, right? And you’re in your corporate job or your small business, right? You are working, you are trading your time for their money to fulfill their dream. When it comes to self employment, entrepreneurship, franchising, this is our opportunity to chase our dream. We no longer trade our time for money. More often once we reach a certain level of success, we start trading our money for our time.

And that’s the biggest thing. That’s where I’m at now. I’m very fortunate. Last year I bought out one of my competitors. We, we merged together and came came together. Now he runs the day to day of my business. So now I have the freedom and the time to prioritize being the visionary of the company, going beyond my company. And so Camel Crew is the base.

And then to your point, I wrote a book called Words Fucking Matter. It is neuro linguistics programming at a fifth grade reading level. That’s the simplest way to put it. And now I’m writing, I’m writing about three quarters of the way through my second book. It’s a business book called Numbers Fucking Matter. There’s a theme and I do fractional CFO work.

I was a business consultant for years and I’ve done COO work and more recently, the last two years or so I’ve done CFO work because I realized all the clients I worked with, all of them struggle with their numbers. That was the one consistent thing I used to do. Keynote six buckets of business marketing, sales, operations, the thing you do, resources that are human and the numbers.

Over 500 surveys I put out numbers is historically the lowest one and more often the worst. Right. So it’s, it’s low and it’s people’s number five or number six almost always. Very few entrepreneurs love numbers the way I do. So I’m very uniquely positioned that I love numbers and entrepreneurship.

So the newest book focuses on how to look at your numbers within your business, how to understand it. How to understand what your numbers are telling you, the story they’re telling you. And there’s no need to be a math person because a lot of people are non math people and get intimidated by numbers.

Meg
This is where I then shift over to… You’re talking about being passionate about what you do and you love junk removal. When I owned Great Clips and I owned Image Studios—right now, I’m not a cosmetologist, a barber, an esthetician. I don’t love any of that stuff.

I’m going to go to Great Clips this afternoon because even though I sold mine, I still go there. The love for me was empowering these people to do their job to the greatest capacity of their skill set without the encumbrances of a bad culture, bad leadership.

So my sweet spot is more in building entrepreneurs. That’s what I love to do. I totally agree. I was talking to Katherine Wilson yesterday and we both missed you and we both miss getting together for the networking events. But she and I were talking about how her business has matured. It’s what I talked to a lot of my past people about. What’s your least favorite thing?

And to your point, numbers scare people.

Andy
They’re intimidating.

Meg
They’re visionaries, they’re entrepreneurs. They love the thing, but they don’t like the science behind it. And just like Katherine now is at year number eight, she’s embraced the numbers. She’s working more on KPIs. She’s like, you kicked yourself upstairs, so good for you for acquiring another company, finding that person to take over the day-to-day, which you may very well love, but no one can do what you can do, Andy.

Andy
Yeah, so two points I’ll hit on there.

A: Being a fractional CFO, I love it because I can look at numbers, I can look at your numbers, and I have no emotional response. And a lot of people have a visceral reaction to their numbers for the first time. They’re like, oh, right. The number one question I get is, where’s all the money? Right. I worked really hard, where’s all the money?

And then once you realize where all the money went, you’re like, oh, you’re right, that does add up. It’s like, yeah, all these things add up. Or sometimes we’re missing money and I can find you some money because you didn’t even know where it was. Or we’re paying way too much in taxes and penalties and fines and fees and interest and wasted expenses. And we can free that up because you’re like, oh, I just carry a balance on my credit card. It’s like, well, let’s stop. You want those three or four hundred back a month? Let’s stop carrying a balance.

So there’s one piece. The other piece about kicking myself upstairs… I got into reading a couple years ago, perspective wise. I failed English four times in high school. I went to summer school three times and I retook it one time. And now I’m an avid reader and I’ve written a book and I’m writing another book. So people can—I am coachable. I’m unmanageable and unemployable. And yet I’m very coachable.

So anyways, one of the books I read last year, one of my favorite books: Dan Sullivan, 10x is Easier Than 2x. And that book. And then also Dan Martell’s Buy Back Your Time. And the theme that both of them have, along with other books, but the biggest theme is prioritization.

And one of the things I teach my clients, even as a CFO, I have them do a two week time study. Because a two week time study, you figure out every 15 minutes of your day, what are you doing? Which bucket does it fall into? Is it something you love and you’re great at? You like and you’re good at? You’re good at and you don’t like? And you’re not good and you hate? Right. That’s a number. That’s an indicator. That’s data. That can be analyzed.

And then implement changes so that we live a happier life. So for me, I did the time study, and I realized—and I knew this, and yet the data proved it—I love doing this stuff. I love preaching and teaching. And leading. Those are things I love doing. I love being on podcasts. I love writing my book. I love doing keynote speeches. I do keynotes.

I enjoy being a fractional CFO because it’s a new challenge. It’s a new puzzle. A lot of those things that a lot of business owners hate doing, right? They want to do the thing. Me, I’m kind of over junk removal. It’s like, once I’ve taken a fridge out of a basement, I’ve kind of seen it all. And I’ve done hundreds of jobs.

And so I knew from day one, when I started the business in June of 2016, my brother and I started, I said from day one that there is going to be five years. In five years, we need to be in a position where we can be out of this business. And this is before I read anything or knew anything, really. I just said, you know what? What I don’t want to do is be that business owner that after 10 years, it’s owner centric. And I have no exit plan.

Meg
Yeah.

Andy
So I said, we’re going to begin our exit day one. Day one, we’re going to be at our exit. And so the math of it was simple. There’s 100 things to do every day. We know that. There’s 100 things. Well, there’s two of us. So that means, Ike, you do 50, I do 50. All right. We’re down to half.

And then my goal was, how do we get from 50 things to 10 things, and then from 10 things to 5 things, and then from 5 things to 2 or 3 things a day? And that’s consistent with what 10x is Easier Than 2x says and Buy Back Your Time. It says, what are the two or three things you can do every day that have the greatest impact on your business? And that’s it. You focus on that.

Steve Jobs is famous. He was 80% go, 80% production and 20% noise. So 80% was focused. He’d say, okay, there’s 20 things on my plate today. What are the three things today that move the needle? Those are the only three things I’m going to put my effort into.

Some say Elon Musk is 100% execution and 0% noise, because it doesn’t even factor. And yet most business owners, most entrepreneurs, myself included, we get caught up in the urgent, not important quadrant all day, every day. And often that urgent, non important quadrant is stuff that we’re good at but we don’t like doing. We’re the person that does it because we’re the person that does it for no other reason.

And so the challenge is, how do you get yourself out of this firefight every day? How do you focus on the priorities? How do you block off your time? Right. I told Meg here that I ran five minutes late because I was doing a tour downstairs. Why? Because I’m down there teaching and preaching and leading people about recycling.

Do I want to sit there and sort clothes in the Gaylords? No. Do I want to talk about it? Absolutely. Do I want to be vulnerable and transparent? Absolutely. Do I want to give away the answers to the test for free? Absolutely. That’s what I love doing.

And so the key for entrepreneurs is to start stopping. Stop the things that are in that low left or low right quadrant. Stop the things that do not make you money. Stop the things that do not excite you. Stop the things that drain your energy. And once you stop, you create this void. You can fill it with the things that excite you, the things that make you money, the things that make your company money.

That’s the biggest challenge I see with entrepreneurs. They spend all their time on the urgent, not important stuff. And then they wonder, where’s all my time? Where’s all my money? Where’s all my energy? And it’s like, well, you gave it away. You gave it away.

Meg
And so when you talk about stopping the stuff, how did you and Ike then—did you hire to fill in around you? You want to offset, offload that stuff. So who picked up the weight?

Andy
Well, there’s three things, right? Automate, delegate, eliminate.

When we first started in business, every time a customer would call, five times I entered the data. Five times. That was—I put it in my phone, I wrote it down on a piece of paper, I put it on our Outlook calendar app, I text it to our team, and I put it in QuickBooks at some point. Five times, same customer data.

So what did I do? I went out and got an operations software. And with our operations software… now I’m automating that. So instead of it taking five minutes throughout the course of the week, now it took one minute. Okay, well, I just gained four minutes back per customer.

When you’ve got 10 customers a week, not a big deal. It’s 40 minutes. That’s not life changing. Well, when you have 100 customers a week, that’s 400 minutes. That’s seven hours of my time I got back. That’s an hour a day.

So that’s Automate—what are things that you’re wasting your time doing that can easily be eliminated?

Meg
Yeah.

Andy
Right. So you’re automating them.

Second thing is delegate. You asked, right? We had our first employee. I had a business partner and an employee before I did my first job. That’s it. Before our first project.

All too often people have this scarcity mindset: Oh, I only have so many dollars. No, no. You only have so much time.

Meg
Right.

Andy
We have an abundance of energy and money. Once you start having an abundance mindset, you’ll start transforming. This is again what Dan Martell talks about in Buy Back Your Time.

When you, the business owner, hoard everything—you hoard all the responsibilities, you hoard all the information, you hoard all the ownership of the company—you’re doing a disservice to everybody that interacts with you. Because there’s somebody out there that you can employ, you can help put food on their table, that is better than you at something that you’re doing.

You are refusing to allow yourself to grow. You’re selflessly hurting yourself by not being selfish with your time.

And so there’s this martyr mindset that I had as a business owner for years. It was, How much can I work? How little can I pay myself? I’m awesome. Here’s the thing about martyrs: they die. That’s the problem with being a martyr.

And so whether it’s—you die all at once because you ran out of money, or you death by a thousand cuts because you ran out of energy, right, you went from owning your business to your business owning you.

Meg
Yeah.

Andy
It came down to your choice.

Third thing—we talked about Automate. Right now there are a lot of ways of automation with ChatGPT right now. Automate, automate, automate. That’s… I’m gonna get off my soapbox there.

Delegate—hire people to do things that they’re better than you’re at. For example, I’m a really good bookkeeper in my business. I did the books the first two years, three years. I was really good at it.

And then I got an assistant and I was like, oh wait, I freed up two or three hours of my time each week by her doing it. And she gets it done in 90 minutes. Wow. I can pay her—at the time it was a third-party EA. I was paying on average, I think 40, 45, $50 an hour. Call it $50 an hour.

So I could pay her $50 for an hour and a half. So for $75 is equivalent to three hours of my time.

Meg
Yep.

Andy
I was doing a $25-an-hour task. I could pay for $50 and get it done. Why was I doing a $25-an-hour task? I’m worth more than $25 to my company. Right? So that’s delegate.

Third thing: eliminate. I work in junk removal. I declutter people’s lives. I bring peace of mind to people in their homes by eliminating things that no longer serve them.

There are practices and procedures and processes within your business that you can stop doing today and will have no impact on your business whatsoever. It’s not moving the needle. You do it because you’ve always done it. We went from busy work. It makes you feel good.

I have a client down in Orlando and they were telling me about these reports. Takes them 4 hours for their CFO, CFO to pull these reports in the morning they have them. She pulls them on Monday. They look at them on Thursday. I’m like, the data is already bad by Thursday on a weekly report.

Because now you’re talking about last week. You know, we’re talking about week number one during week number two. And you’re only making plans for week number three. You’re already a week behind.

And then she goes, yeah, you know what? She goes—she did a two week time study with me. She’s the COO, the integrator for the business. And she did a time study and then she did a time study with her CFO and also out of customer success, right? They also did the time study.

And she goes, I hate pulling these reports. And she goes, I don’t think anybody even reads them. It’s true. Nobody on the leadership team even looked at them. No one knew how to read them. They’re like, oh, okay, the report’s done.

Four hours a week, the CFO was pulling reports that no one looked at because at one point they did.

So I challenge you every quarter: audit your business. Eliminate a bunch of things in your business that might not serve you. Here’s the best part—when you eliminate them and then you see a deficiency, you see a gap, you’re like, oh, okay, let’s bring that back.

It’s kind of like letting people on vacation. We let—you know, our team, our leadership team has unlimited PTO. I’m a firm believer in it. The right people will not abuse it. They have unlimited PTO.

And every time someone goes on vacation, we find the gaps in our business. We find what was that person holding on to that’s not systematic, thorough, and repeatable.

Meg
Yep.

Andy
What proprietary information they have. Because someday they might retire or win the lottery or get hit by a bus. Right. Those are the realities of life. I’ve actually did the research—less than 101 person a day in the United States get killed by a bus. However, there’s buses everywhere. So that’s the proverbial analogy.

And so when you proactively eliminate people from doing certain things or eliminate certain processes, you become more efficient. That scarcity will drive innovation.

Meg
And to encourage people to go on vacation.

Andy
Oh, I really—hold on. I just realized why the hand gesture thing, I was farting around with this. This is what’s going on. I just realized this. It says recognize hand gestures. When I keep doing this or like moving my hands a little too much—that’s what. See, there it goes. It just popped up because I keep doing this. That’s too funny. There we go.

Thanks Zoom, for adding a process. Zoom—wow. What a talk about a stock that tanked in the last five years, down 94% from its pandemic height because it didn’t innovate and now it’s doing hand gestures for me. All right, we got to the bottom of that. That was good.

Meg
So back to vacations and that mindset of people like, I don’t want to go on vacation because I’m going to be too stressed out or they’re going to find the gaps. Yeah, that’s exactly why you need to go away.

Andy
That’s why you do it. Yeah. So I’ll put my CFO hat on. Every single person’s business, I break it down to 48 weeks. So every business is 48 weeks. It makes the math simpler when we do the annual projections.

I recognize there’s 13 weeks in a quarter and there’s 26 pay periods, typically biweekly in a year. Got it. I break it down to 48 weeks. And here’s the hillbilly math: the week between Christmas and New Year’s is dead for most businesses and the 4th of July week is dead.

Last week was 4th of July. Especially with the 4th being on a Friday, everyone was done by noon on Thursday. So I throw those weeks away right away. And then I’ll say, you’re going to take two weeks of vacation. Either you take the two weeks of vacation or you’re going to have 10 days of garbage throughout the year from not taking the vacation. Your choice. That’s the math of it.

And then from there we look at your annual goals and I break it down on a 48 week cycle. Makes the math a lot simpler. And then we say, okay, the difference between taking off two weeks and acknowledging two weeks of dead time—those four weeks not accounted for—is like working two hours a week. Two hours or change. Raising your prices by 5%. That simple.

That simple of a fix and you can have a whole two weeks. And that again, this is a learned behavior. For years, I didn’t take a vacation. I didn’t earn it. I was stressed out. I didn’t. And then the beautiful thing is being in the military. Within my first year in business, I got orders in February saying I was gone for three weeks in May, and I was the entire company.

So I told someone in our business—he was our, at the time, he was our eBay guy who basically was gonna take stuff and try to sell it on eBay—I remember I said, you have 87 days to learn everything I do. That forced us in a position where it’s like, oh, we should probably have processes. Oh, that’s a good idea.

And then I was gone for those three weeks. The first week showed gaps everywhere. I’m on the phone every 10 minutes. I might as well not even be doing my army training. Second week, kind of a handoff. By the third week, they didn’t need me to come back. You’ll be amazed how insignificant you are to your business when you do things right.

And when you’re super significant to your business as a business owner, that’s not a good thing. I have a client right now—bar and restaurant. He is the head of the back of the house. He’s the head chef, head cook. She’s front of the house. They said verbatim, when we’re not there, we have to shut the kitchen down. Because between the staff, they cannot run the kitchen.

Meg
Yeah.

Andy
How much freedom is that? The whole reason we get in this whole mess is to have the freedom.

Meg
Because we have a vision of how to make the world better. Which—why bother doing it if you don’t understand how to monetize it? But you do have to get yourself out of it.

I was interviewing a Transworld broker last couple of weeks about entrepreneurs who can’t effectively sell their business.

Andy
The other business.

Meg
Because it’s all about them. And like building a custom home, they believe that the value of what they have built exceeds what the market rate will bear. And so there’s this disconnect between the entrepreneur who gets into business and what their original mission and goal was.

And then two, three, five years into it, looking around, going, oh crap, my business owns me. I don’t own a business, it owns me. So go in with the exit in mind, I think is what you’d said earlier. Because then you’re strategically building for that time when maybe somebody is going to come by and make you an offer. And good—that’s your time, your possibility to exit.

Andy
Yep. So I learned—again, this is where the dynamic of corporate America, small business, military has really positively impacted my life.

Meg
Yeah, no kidding.

Andy
I was a career counselor. I still am, I’m still a career counselor in the army. I was a career counselor though for seven years here in Milwaukee. Now I’m stationed elsewhere. And in those seven years I realized how many people joined the army and never thought about their career progression.

And along the way I met someone that said, when is the ideal time to start planning your exit out of the military? And some people say, oh, you should probably start planning six months before you get out, or maybe when you sign your last contract, or two years. And everyone thinks they have this perfect answer.

And they say, okay, the day you start planning your exit from the military is the day you raise your right hand. Day one. What does your exit look like?

And so I thought about that in 2016 when I said, hey, we gotta put ourselves in a position in five years to be able to exit our business. And we’re also—we’re on another five year strategy right now.

I said 18 months ago, on January 1, 2024, I declared, we’re gonna get to 5 million in top line revenue in five years and I’m gonna exit. That’s my plan. So that was it. And I declared to everybody. Everybody knew it.

Now, will I sell the business? Will I become a silent owner? Will I ESOP it? Will I stick around? Will I go with a PE firm? I don’t know. You know what? I’m gonna have all those options in five years, including staying here and enjoying it because everything’s running great. Because I have the right.

So I’m putting myself in a position in five years to have options versus, Oh, I’m gonna sell in five years. I’m gonna do nothing different. And in five years I hope it’s worth something.

And so one of the things with a five year plan—I read about this in EOS talks about this and other books talk about this—that when you have a five year plan, you will miss the mark on year one, you will fail hard in year two, kind of like the sophomore slump.

Because year one, you got all the momentum and motivation. And so you might fail, but at least you fail with your head up thinking you’re doing something. Year two, sophomore slump, you will fail by a death of a thousand cuts. Year three, it’ll start to make sense and you’ll hit your marks. Year four and year five, you’ll exceed your goals.

Because in year one you are making decisions for year five. You were hiring that person in year one that was really a year two person, so they were ready by years three and four when you really needed them. You buy the equipment in year one that you use 50% of the time because by year three you’re going to need more equipment versus stretching every dollar.

I don’t care if you have a three year plan. Five year plan. Ten year plans are pretty far out. The book Vivid Vision by Cameron Herold argues three year plans. I like three year plans. So we have a five year vision with a three year plan. That’s the way I’m articulating it right now.

And so when you have the plan, then again, going back to why I’m a fractional CFO, going back to the numbers, now you have something to compare it to. Where are we compared to our plan?

Like right now, this year, we are behind on our plan. We know exactly how far behind we are on this year’s plan and how does it relate to our five year plan. So although it’s detrimental to this year, we’re still within tolerance to get to our five year strategy. Okay, we’re good.

Meg
And that’s a big mindset too, is to not let the numbers defeat you or distract you from your end goal. So to have a five year plan with a rolling three year—I go with 24 months.

Andy
Exactly. One year is not enough and ten is too many. Yeah, it’s somewhere between two and five years is ideal.

Meg
But as the entrepreneur, you have to understand that your numbers are going to be hard to tolerate for a period of time.

Andy
Oh yeah.

Meg
Anything that is worth doing—in your head, this was worth doing. I am here. I’m established. I got my website… What. Fill in the blank. I got my crews and my… but you’re going to hit speed bumps. Just understand that. I don’t care if it’s a marriage or raising a child—it’s human condition that nothing is perfect and you’re going to run into a problem.

But when you are the entrepreneur, especially if you’ve got employees, you’ve got to have either a network of support, mentors, advisors, because your employees and your customers are looking to you for that day-to-day continuity of, Okay, this is a challenge, but it’s not the end.

It’s like when our First Friday group meets.

Andy
Oh yeah.

Meg
And some people come with that “I’m failing” mentality versus “I hit a speed bump, who can help me get through this obstacle?” Two very different mentalities towards future success, because one will stop you from future success and the other one will enable you.

Andy
Yeah, I talked about this in my book. I actually talked about it this morning with our guys. This morning I came in—we do Tuesday morning training, one hour training for our service team—and we did our culture study. Every 90 days we’re a 20–25 person company that does a 90 day culture study every 90 days for our service team. We want to get the pulse.

And then this morning I sat down and talked to our guys about it. And I talked about this in my book. This is again about the empowerment and intentionality of language.

In this world there are three types of people. Everything in my life breaks down to three. That’s the math of it. Three right, there are victims, there are victors and there are villains. Those are the three types of people in this world.

Villains I pay no mention to. There are terrible people in this world. We give them no energy. Okay, let’s move on. That’s it.

Now, there are victims and there are victors. The same situation can happen to somebody. One person will say, This happened to me. Woe is me. I’m a victim. And the other person will say, Ooh, what is the gift in this? This happened for me. They’re the victor. It is as simple as breaking down your language.

One of our employees earlier today when I was coming in—a newer guy, I barely know anything about him—somebody said, Man, it was a long day yesterday. We got it done. We were here late. Next guy said, Oh, I wish I got some hours.

Okay, so you have one guy more or less acknowledging—he wasn’t complaining—he was acknowledging there was a long day and a lot of work yesterday. And the other guy wishing he had the hours. And in that victim mindset, that Wouldn’t that be nice mindset.

And I looked at it and thought, yeah, he’s not going to be here long. He’s not going to be here long because he is choosing not to be here long. And I brought it up in front of the group.

I said, when you come in here—we do junk removal. This is simple. We take things out of people’s houses, we put it on a truck, we take it off a truck and we put it on a cart or Gaylord or a dock. That is what we do. We pick things up and put them down.

How you do junk removal is a catalyst behind how you live your life. Do you do it dragging ass? Do you do it complaining? Do you do it lazy? Do you do it half-assed? Chances are how you do junk removal is how you do the rest of your life.

Or do you do it with a little pep in your step? Do you do it with energy and encouragement for others? Do you do it thinking, What is the next best place for this? How do I secure these pieces of furniture so we can donate them in the future?

How you do something is how you do everything. And so for the business owners that say, Woe is me. It’s like—you own the business.

When I was part of the franchise, that was one of my biggest issues.

Meg
Yeah. Yeah.

Andy
They kept telling me what I couldn’t do, and I would—oh, I loved blaming them. Action Coach has a model: it’s ownership, accountability, responsibility above the line, or blame, excuse, denial below the line.

Everybody I’ve met in this world has a predisposition to blame, excuse, or denial—one of those three things. And typically it happens during the HALT phase. HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.

Meg
Hmm.

Andy
You are more likely to commit suicide when you are one or more of those four things. I’m a Master Resiliency Trainer in the military. I’ve done a lot of suicide prevention. I’ve done crisis prevention. That’s the extreme.

I take the world because, But did you die? is a chapter in my book. Because death is the ultimate acceptance of reality at times.

So I digress. Blame, excuse, denial. I am a blamer. I love blaming other people. I won’t give you excuses because that takes too much creativity. I’m not in denial of the basic facts. I will find a way to blame everybody for hell.

Even when I texted you today, Oh, my tour ran long, right? I blamed them versus, Hey, I lost track of time. I talked too much. I blamed them.

As I say this out loud, it’s funny. When I hear business owners with excuses, with blame, or with denial of the basic facts, we either shift that language into ownership, accountability, responsibility—or there’s not even a starting point.

Because some people, business owners included, love being victims.

And one last thing I love about the Friday group—you know, I’ve been part of the Friday group seven years, eight years, very early in my career. We’ll listen to the Woe is you for a minute, and then we’re going to start talking about, Well, what are you going to do?

Give people the grace, and then what are you going to do about it?

Meg
And that’s a fundamental element of that First Friday group going all the way back almost to the beginning. One of our founding members—I’ve told the story before—he came in with the Woe is me, I’m at death’s door, I’m gonna throw away the key, lock the door and throw away the key.

And I said, okay, well then you need to go, because that’s not what we do here. And he’s still around. He’s still now in a different business and different mindset altogether.

But that was a real moment of reckoning for the group—that leverage as fellow entrepreneurs. Because we’ve all seen the same shit. Every one of us has run into the proverbial brick wall and had to get unstuck and out of it.

So get yourself a good network. Join one. Be there. Show up. And come with a positive attitude because you—the buck stops with you, business owner. The buck stops with you, and you can choose how to make that decision and impact the culture of your company when you use your decision-making tactics.

Andy
Yeah, I did an interview last week for Titan 100. Titan 100 is a national organization that recognizes the top 100 CEOs in a geographic area. And I’ve been part of Titan 100 the last two years. I’m very fortunate to be part of Titan 100 here in the state of Wisconsin.

And they interviewed me and one of the questions they asked was, what is the number one trait for entrepreneurs and for successful business people? There are a lot of words to choose from. I love words. What’s the number one word, the number one trait?

I said vulnerability. That’s the number one trait. Because business owners that have made it have no problem talking about, Oh yeah, this is the decision I made, this is the choice I made and it went to shit. This is the hire I made that cost me time, energy and money. Here’s what I thought and here’s the reality.

Those people that aren’t vulnerable—they’re not even being honest with themselves. They’re not being honest with other people. And there is a ceiling they’re already putting in place.

As business owners, it’s important for us to be vulnerable. And most of the time, the issues we have that show up in our business are coming from fear. They’re coming from a scarcity mindset. They’re coming from reacting to the circumstance versus responding to the situation.

You, me, we individually are reflections of our business. When I’m scattered brain and I’m not focused, guess what? My business is all over the place. When I’m hesitant—this last year, things have not gone to plan. We are about 80% to our revenue goal six months into the year.

And I learned this year—I’m staying steady the course. I’ve got my eye on that three year plan. So as shitty as it is at times, I’m focused on the future.

One of my employees about a month ago, down in operations, one of our guys did something stupid in the field. I can’t remember what it was. And he goes to me, How is it you don’t just scream at everybody every day and throw shit…

I’m like, well, I did that for years. I’m reformed.

Meg
Been there, done that. It didn’t get me anywhere. So I found a new way.

Andy
Yeah, exactly. I have lots of broken coffee cups, including some of my favorite coffee cups. And I told him, I said, because it’s about being vulnerable and saying, yeah, that sucked and what can we do about it? It’s already done. I’m future focused.

And because I have a mountaintop on top, I ain’t worried about the damn ankle biter down here. No. Because I’m focused on that. As soon as I turn my focus to this shit, then the horizon is lost. The future is forever the mountaintop.

And then getting my ass back up, right? And again getting sucked down and in. And so again, it takes years. I am reformed. I am the prodigal son.

I used to walk around this warehouse and my go-to default—blame projection, wounded inner child, limiting self-belief bullshit —I put out to the world was, Nothing gets done around here unless I do it.

And it was true because it was true. Because I lived it and I thought it and I said it out loud. And then as soon as I said, oh, let go—right, we started the conversation about having the prioritization and the time to focus on what’s important.

And so it was a choice I made to start focusing on the things that mattered most for the future and not this ankle biter shit. And all of a sudden things started getting done around here that didn’t involve me. It’s amazing how that worked.

Meg
And it’s so freeing.

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed again Karen Covey—How to Divorce-Proof Your Marriage. But we were talking about how the business lives in your head. You’ve got a daughter, you’ve got a relationship. We all said “I do” to the relationship and then “yes” to having a kid or children.

And now you’re letting your business dictate your life because you’ve abdicated control of what brings you joy, fun, and yes. By letting the business dictate your mood, it’s a buzzkill. It’s a fun sucker. And it will ruin the quality of your relationships that are supposed to nourish your soul.

Andy
Yeah. You know, I look at the four freedoms: freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of purpose and freedom of relationships. We have them going into business and somehow along the way I gave up all those freedoms.

Meg
Yeah.

Andy
And now the last couple years I’ve been fighting, clawing to get back those four freedoms. And what you keep bringing up here is this idea of how to do it right. Podcasts like this are great, books are good, community is better. Having some form of community of vulnerable people.

I’m very fortunate. I’m in Titan 100. I’m part of that networking group. I also have an MMAC roundtable I attend monthly. And the most important thing I’ve done the last five years is I’ve been in a Vistage CEO roundtable last 5 years. Those are my people.

I said a couple years ago, I want to be around my Vistage people all day. And I realized, well, what is that? Well, those are growth-minded people. 80% of people in this world are fixed-minded. 20% are growth-minded. That means four out of every five people you run into are not your people.

Andy
I dated a woman down in Chicago for years. Great person, good relationship. And she wasn’t growth-minded. And it wasn’t until after we broke up that I started studying this growth mindset versus fixed mindset.

So she wasn’t a bad person—she had an idea of what the world was all about, and she surrounded herself with fixed-minded people. And away they went. I remember one time we were talking and she said, Things are different with you. You’re always pushing me and challenging me and thinking about the world differently.

I go, yeah, because none of your friends, none of your family are growth-minded. And she goes, You’re telling me they’re not good people? I said, I didn’t say they weren’t good. I said they weren’t growth-minded. This is the world they want to live in, and that’s good.

When you’re an entrepreneur, you are a growth mindset; stuck in a fixed-minded world. A lot of people—again, 80%—are fixed-minded.

Meg
Yeah.

Andy
So you’re going to question things. You’re going to take time to listen to podcasts on nights and weekends and on your drive. You’re going to go to work and see things different than everybody else, because you’re like, there’s a better way of doing this.

Why is this idiot in charge? Why are we doing things the way we’ve always done it?

I almost got kicked out of the military—I got a letter of reprimand in the military. At Waste Management, I was known as the angry emailer. When I worked for a small business, I was known as “college boy” because I was always coming up with different ideas.

So three different places, I was highly unsuccessful because I wanted to challenge the status quo. That’s what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

And when you have that burning, that desire, and you start surrounding yourself with growth-minded people—in the First Friday group, in a CEO roundtable, in networking events and groups—you’ll be like, oh, this is what it’s like. We are capable of doing everything.

The woman I’m dating now—I watched her on social media for years talk about growth mindset, talk about stoicism, and I was so attracted to that. And now we’re engaged and we’re building a life together. We have this wonderful life because we’re both growth-minded.

Yep, growth-minded people want to be around growth-minded people. We know each other. You and I know each other personally. I know your husband. He is growth-minded as they come. He’s way beyond his working years. Most people are retired, and yet he’s paying attention to the market every day. He’s looking at opportunities to invest. He’s looking at opportunities to improve himself and others every single day. Because there’s no expiration date on a growth mindset.

Meg
And this is why it’s so important for you—as I’ve gotten to know you. It’s exhausting if you’re a fixed-minded person. So fixed-minded people need to find their level set and stick with it.

But if you’re growth-minded and you’re attached to another growth-minded person, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Get comfortable with constant conversation and thought-provoking. Let’s look to the left, look to the right. Not inside the silo, but let’s get outside the silo.

And yes, to your point, we’re now looking at a succession plan for our Tallgrass office. Pete has continued to run Blackthorn Capital Management out of Whitewater and never threw in the towel, never waved the white flag. That’s been millions of dollars and more than 15 years. And he staunchly refuses to give it up. He turned 65 earlier this year.

We talk about what does retirement look like. And I think I’ve told you this story. I think I’ve said it on the podcast. In 2012, 2008 was a divorce I never saw coming at an absolutely horrible time in the economy. Four years later, I had enough money in the bank to pay off my mortgage and my son’s college tuition that his dad reneged on.

Four years I got myself back up on my feet and audited. And it was in that moment that I realized I’m going to work for joy, fun and yes. Otherwise the answer is no. And I specifically asked for my future life. I put it out to the universe—I wanted to meet someone like Pete. I wanted to be pushed.

I wanted a man who would keep up with me. And this is when you’re a growth-minded person, you really need to find that partner in life who’s going to—they don’t have to jump on board with you, but you need someone in your corner who’s going to wave your banner, wave your flag.

Andy
Your first date wasn’t great, right? Why? Because it was uncomfortable and there was chaos and it was challenging. it was like you want that.

And how relatable is that to life? When you first start in business, you’re like, This is great! And then you get punched in the face a few times, and you’re like, This sucks. It’s like, well, hold on—that’s part of the deal.

You want comfort? Comfort comes with a couch and maybe diabetes. You want to push yourself? You gotta get your ass up and move and get to the gym and do all those other things and push yourself and read the books and be vulnerable.

I remember that story you and Pete told about how your first date—it was like, yeah, you put two growth-minded people challenging each other. I want someone that challenges me… until they challenge me and then it kind of sucks.

As a business owner, I want to be around other CEOs that are going to pump me up—until they tell me the hard truth.

I remember, Mike, this guy in my CEO roundtable, I told him at the time I had a guy that was a general manager. I thought, Well, if I promote him to president, he’ll take the leap. Promoting somebody to president who wasn’t a very good general manager.

I know you’re shaking your head. Mike pulled me aside and goes, That’s a terrible decision. I said, I already made the decision. He goes, Unmake it.

Well, a year later I fired that guy. So yeah, I wanted growth-minded people until they pushed me and challenged me and kicked me in the pants.

That’s the reality—as a business owner, it is constant chaos. It is constant discomfort. Comfort is the enemy of progress. P.T. Barnum talks about that. When you’re uncomfortable, it’s because you’re learning and growing and you’re breaking through a ceiling and you’re testing your own fixed mindset.

Even when you’re growth-minded, you’re still fixed-minded about some things.

I keep projecting you, I, I, as a growth minded person am still fixed minded about some things, right? Because again, it’s a, it’s a spectrum. It’s not a, it’s not a true yes or no.

You’re going to be more growth-minded in certain times and more fixed-minded other times. Are you growth-minded more often than not? Okay, then you’re a growth-minded person.

Meg
I was at a conference last year and after doing the fireside chat, a woman came up to me and she said that she admired me and, at my age, the energy that I have to continue to expand and start new businesses. And she said, As an entrepreneur, I can only deal with three fires a day.

Like, well, you got to get out of your own way then, because you’re going to have days where you’ve got ten. And it all starts and stops with you. Because if you can’t pick yourself up and make those decisions, then decisions are going to come in around you and that’s going to degrade your business.

So stop being fixed about how much you can handle and start to look at limitless potential. Who can you bring in to support you during those challenging times? Because they’re always going to be there.

But the success part of it is—don’t let go of those days where you have a win. Don’t put it off and say, I’m too busy, I can’t acknowledge the win until maybe dinnertime.

Andy
You ring the bell right now, we have a bell. We have a bell in our operations office and we ring the. It’s a bell. That was a wrestling ring or you know, I mean it was like ding, right?

Whatever it is, we ring the bell every time we get a one.

Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. Because you’re going to have a loss between now and when you think it’s time to celebrate.

Meg
Yeah.

Andy
Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. I love that idea.

Also, as you’re talking, I hear all the victim mindsets up. I can’t handle more than five fires. Can’t—bullshit word. I’m too busy. Shit word. Because when you say I can’t handle more than three fires, guess what? It’s true. You can’t.

Meg
Yeah. If you believe it, then that is what it is.

Andy
And also then reshape it. How do you prevent the fires? Let’s not have fires. I know it’s laughable because the other thing that happens with entrepreneurs as we wrap up here—this is what happened to me recently, last six months—as things are starting to go smooth in my business.

There are five different sabotages. Buy Back Your Time, Dan Martell. I read that book two weeks ago, so it’s very fresh. There are five sabotaging behaviors that we as business owners do. And I’m one of those people where it’s, Oh, everything’s going right, everything’s going smooth. What can I do to screw things up? What can I do to create friction? What can I do to shake things up?

And all of a sudden, I’m creating fires where there are none. Even though things are going to plan, I want to create fires.

So the last piece with that client you talked about that says, I can only handle three fires a day. A new brain hack, brain trick, verbiage I use with people: I say, It sounds like an issue, not an ish-me.

Meg
Ah, good one.

Andy
There you go. Not ish-me. Because who’s it on? Instant ownership, accountability, responsibility. Because right now, excuse: I can only handle three fires a day. Excuse.

Meg
And if that’s what you say your capacity is, then you’re absolutely right. But you won’t grow to your full potential. Andy, this has been fabulous. You gotta go. I gotta go.

Andy
Yep.

Meg
Entirely quotable. And so thank you again for making the time for me today.

Andy
Appreciate it.