[ 00:00:12,690 ]I’m Adam Hayes, joined to my left by my co-host, Bob Payton. Good day. And across the table from us today is Michael Hall with Trustworthy Financial. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for being here. So tell us about Trustworthy Financial.

 

[ 00:00:26,940 ] Well, that’s a loaded question.

 

[ 00:00:29,940 ] I know, right? So, you know what? Let me kind of start from the beginning. I’ve always had an entrepreneur spirit. I’ve never had the education or the money and didn’t know how to get it started. And so, um, in high school, uh, if I can go back there, I remember being in high school and being completely lost. Like, everybody around me knew what they they knew what college they wanted to go to, they knew what they wanted to do. They knew, like, I don’t remember anybody even sitting down and asking me what I wanted to do for a career. And I didn’t even have— I had no clue, like, what is even available out there.

 

[ 00:01:08,630 ] My best friend at the time. So you probably can’t tell us who your high school guidance counselor is, right?

 

[ 00:01:14,010 ] They were not present.

 

[ 00:01:16,949 ] I wish I even knew their name.

 

[ 00:01:18,730 ] I bet it’s about the same.

 

[ 00:01:22,430 ] I’ll tell you that story later. Oh, man. Well, actually, I guess I can fast forward a little bit. So I was a Baltimore City firefighter and a paramedic. That was actually my dream job. It’s what I wanted to do with my life. I was also a Marine. Oh, thank you for your service. Thank you. When I’m still in the reserves.

 

[ 00:01:41,520 ] Okay, so I signed up for six years in the Marines. And this is Baltimore? Baltimore. Maryland. Baltimore, Maryland. Yeah, there is no Baltimore, Indiana.

 

[ 00:01:49,890 ] Well, you know, there could be a Baltimore, Idaho. You just never know.

 

[ 00:01:53,950 ] That’s true. Good point. There are some different Baltimore’s. That’s true. Yeah.

 

[ 00:01:58,389 ] Yeah, so I was a fireman. It’s what I wanted to do with my life. I lost the bet in high school. I joined the Marines.

 

[ 00:02:06,130 ] Seriously? Tell us about that. Well, that’s what I started talking about. Okay, so I’m in high school, and I’m an introvert. I’m scared of my own shadow. I’ve got no self-confidence. I’ve never done sales. I didn’t want to do it. My best friend at the time was the complete opposite. He had never met a stranger. He wanted to go to the Citadel. He was going to join the Marines, become a fighter pilot. That wasn’t me. Whatever it was, we had a bet that day. You would think that something this big, I’d remember what it was. I don’t. I remember that I thought I was a thousand percent right. He was supposed to be leaving for bootcamp the next day. And one of the things I remember my dad telling me growing up was that your word is your bond. If you lose that, there’s nothing else that you have. People can strip you of everything, but if you lose your integrity. Well, nobody expected me to keep my word on this. It was a high school guy that made a bet. And who follows up with that? Right. But I knew that. And I was thinking, do I really want to start my adult life out on the line? That I would know that my first big decision at 18 years old. Joined the Marines, ended up being the best thing that I could have done. I was terrified to do it.

 

[ 00:03:07,580 ] Was active duty for two years. Ended up getting hired by the Baltimore City Fire Department. That was my dream job. It’s what I always wanted to do. I ended up going to the reserves with the Marines. I did six years in reserves. My time came and went. I hadn’t been overseas and I didn’t feel like I did my job as a man, a Marine, an American. And so I volunteered to extend two more years. I signed up to go to Iraq with an infantry unit that I’d never met out of Texas. Actually, I was assigned to a group out of Virginia that was assigned to a group in Texas and then we went trained together for a couple of months and then we were in Iraq. I landed August 15th at midnight, and it was 120 degrees when we landed. And I got home. The end of March. Lost a bunch of good guys there and came back, got back into the fire department, had a rough time trying to get myself back into normal everyday life. Fast forward, I came home in 05, fast forward to 2009.

 

[ 00:04:09,130 ] That’s when I got some lung issues from my time in Iraq. mainly between the burn pits and the sandstorms and everything there, combined with my time in the fire department. I mean, I worked at one of the small little firehouses that you really had to be in. like the top percentage of the department to get into. And this was 20 years ago. We didn’t wear a lot of masks like we were supposed to back in the day. So we breathed a lot of things in that we shouldn’t be. It was odd. Right. So by 2010, I was forced into a medical retirement. But here I am, close. I barely got a high school diploma. I didn’t step foot in college. My resume said that I could, I say this jokingly, but it says that I could break things and kill people. I don’t think that any employer wants to hire you, right?

 

[ 00:04:53,080 ] Sounds like a movie star, though.

 

[ 00:04:54,980 ] Well, I got involved in network marketing, and that got me into reading. That’s where I learned if I changed the way I thought, I could change my decisions, which would change my results, which would change the way that I feel. Right, I quickly learned that network marketing was not going to fill my bank account. I got out of that. Somebody approached me through that about selling life insurance. And your first reaction? Well, not no, but hell no. Right. Absolutely not. Here’s the crazy thing, Bob. I was making, so I got hired in the fire department at 20 years old, making $19,000 a year in one of the most dangerous cities in the country. Three years later, I top out at top pay, $55,000. Ten years later, I’m still… at $60,000, begging for overtime, right? So here I am coming out of a job where I’m making $60,000 a year. I go to my first… Insurance conference, and I see these people going across the stage making $100,000, there’s a $40,000 difference between where I am and where they are.

 

[ 00:06:00,180 ] But this is so far out of my grasp. I’m thinking, man, if I could ever get to that point, my life is going to be different. So when they asked me about selling life insurance, I said, ‘Hell no.’

 

[ 00:06:14,300 ] About six months later, a friend of mine came up to me. This guy owns the third largest real estate brokerage in Maryland. He’s not only made millions, he’s helped people make millions. And he said, ‘Mike, look, I know that you took a look at it. I know that you said, ‘No, I’m going to be doing the insurance thing.’ You know what I’ve done in real estate. I think I can do it even bigger in insurance. I’d like you to take a look. I didn’t have any interest still, Bob. This guy saw something in me, Adam, that I didn’t want him to catch me, that I was fake, that I was a fraud. So I wanted to save face. I figured, let me go sit down and show up. and pretend like I’m paying attention and then say thank you but no thank you it’s not for me right well I’m sitting there this guy starts writing up all these numbers on the board and my initial reaction is Why?

 

[ 00:07:01,330 ] Why do you like? You got such a great opportunity. Why do you have to embellish? Nobody makes that kind of money working those kinds of hours. Right. Just shoot us straight. Now, started thinking— you idiot, you’re the one that’s broke, without the opportunity. He’s either a really good actor or he’s legit. He’s dressed nice. He’s got a nice car. He’s speaking nice. There’s clearly something going right. I thought, let me prove him wrong.

 

[ 00:07:25,190 ] Hold on a minute. So we’re in the meeting. The thing that caught my attention was he talked about a system-driven business. I said, okay. And he said, the only thing you need to make it in this business is you need to be teachable. You need to be willing to learn and you have to be willing to outwork everybody. I thought, well, that’s the story of my life.

 

[ 00:07:43,410 ] I’m a C student. Well, but you were system driven from the military and the fire department because both those require you to be system and process driven.

 

[ 00:07:52,830 ] And I played sports my entire life. So I’m used to being part of the team, right? And so that’s what we do. We work on a team. And so that caught my eye. I thought, okay, well, if the pressure’s not on me, I cannot work everybody. Went to town. My first full year, I was able to do a quarter of a million dollars, after blowing right past $100, 000 and uh, and it’s been, it’s been a journey, it’s been a journey, and so now we’ve been in business for 13 years, 13 years, this month. Nice. And, um, and, and it’s not the money that we’ve acquired, although I’ve hit financial levels, I never thought somebody like me could do really the biggest thing that I’ve got out of this journey is who I become in the process. Nice. See change is one of the most difficult things in the world to do. None of the three of us are good enough to make anybody change. Yeah.

 

[ 00:08:36,940 ] We were literally talking about this this morning. We were. We were.

 

[ 00:08:40,200 ] But when somebody’s ready, you can’t stop them. Yeah. See, I was not somebody that they should have hired into the insurance business 13 years ago. But I had a dream, and if your dream’s big enough, you know, if you’re running from enough, then you can’t be stopped.

 

[ 00:08:55,890 ] Yeah, so I want to jump back to one one key thing that I heard you say— which was you had a moment there where you kind of went down this road and we kind of skipped over kind of the details. I want to dig into the details because I think they’re important for people to understand here. Which is you read a book, right? About mindset. What was the book or what was the series of books, and what inspired that, and kind of what was the personal journey? You went down to get from where you were to, you know, kind of the spot where you’re like, ‘Okay, now I’m making different decisions.’ You know, I’ve got different habits. My outcomes are different and I’m starting to feel different. Tell us about that journey.

 

[ 00:09:35,500 ] I don’t remember the first book that I’ve read. There’s been a lot of books that I’ve read.

 

[ 00:09:41,420 ] But if I go back to that time, it was more of the leader that I had the example of who he was and how I wanted to become him, how I wanted to emulate him. I just remember feeling lost, that I had no gifts, that I had no talents. What value was I going to bring to the world? And I was just desperately wanting to be valued. And I saw an opportunity that I could take control of my life and I could change the trajectory that I was on. And I had a shot of actually becoming valuable.

 

[ 00:10:15,360 ] What do you think, though, was the crux point where that little voice, you know, little guy on your shoulder talking in your ear, can’t do it, all those kind of things, right? What literally drove you to say, ‘I’m going to stop listening to that?’

 

[ 00:10:30,230 ] I think it’s fear of failure. Yeah. There is a book it’s called ‘Question Based Selling’ and in there there’s a chapter talks about German shepherds and gold medals and talks about how some people chase after things, accolades, money, awards, recognition, things like that. Then there’s people running from things. We got people running to our country right for freedom. That’s true. It’s me. I was running over somebody putting their thumb on me to tell me what my back you was. I was worth more than $20 an hour at a Chick-fil-A. I was running from setting up my… See, my dad was a pastor of a small church, and so was his dad. Oh, we’re preacher’s kids now. My dad… Now you know it gets really crazy, right? So nobody ever taught my grandfather or my father the value of a dollar. So nobody ever taught me that. And luckily, I’ve been able to out earn my stupidity there early on in my life. But it got to the point that I just wanted. I wanted, if there was a shot for me to create a different path for my family, I wanted to do it. Sure. And so. I feel like, and this is just my opinion, I feel it’s too easy to quit on something if you’re chasing after something because you think about it and you think, ‘Okay, my life’s really not that bad, things really aren’t too bad but if you’re running from something and you have to get away from it, there’s

 

[ 00:11:47,800 ] not anything that’s going to stop you. I was prepared to burn the ship at the level that, if it meant that I had to go work in a warehouse. Let me rephrase that.

 

[ 00:12:00,830 ] It was okay for me to not be successful. It just wasn’t okay for me to leave everything out on the field to determine that I wasn’t good enough to be successful.

 

[ 00:12:08,370 ] So it’s kind of the man in the arena, if you read that. Yeah, great quote.

 

[ 00:12:14,900 ] Is that a book too? It’s actually a Roosevelt quote.

 

[ 00:12:19,400 ] Ignore everybody else, right? Unless you’re sitting in there, you can shut up.

 

[ 00:12:24,430 ] So you guys know who Coach Michael Bird is? No. No. Okay. Well, he became famous from he was a high school basketball coach. He came in and won like 13 champions.

 

[ 00:12:34,530 ] championships in the school that never had a championship before. Now he is worldwide. He coaches teams. He coaches businesses. And he wrote a book recently. Called ‘Flip the Switch.’ And in that book, one of the things that he talks about is he says, ‘There’s two versions of all of us. There’s the version that we are and the version that will become. To me, the biggest slap and what drives me, the biggest slap in the face would be to get me to get to the end of my days and for me not to meet the best version of myself. The other thing that he says in that book, he says early on, he was a pastor. And he had these two people that had family members pass away, and they’d asked him to do the eulogy. He didn’t know them. He came and started interviewing the families, and he said, ‘Okay.’ Okay, tell me something about them. What were their dreams? What were their aspirations? How many people did they affect? And both families thought about it and they gave a similar answer. ‘Say, you know, I don’t know that he had any dreams or aspirations. I don’t know that he affected anybody.

 

[ 00:13:36,010 ] I think he’s just a good person. Right. And for me that’s what drives me, because that would be the slap in my face.’ If at the end of my days, my family said he didn’t change anybody’s lives. He didn’t influence anybody. He was just a good person. Right. I don’t know if that answers your question.

 

[ 00:13:52,190 ] Yeah, it does.

 

[ 00:13:53,180 ] Yes, as a fellow preacher’s kid, I understand.

 

[ 00:13:56,360 ] You feel the pain. Yes, absolutely. There’s a missing gap here from Baltimore to Indiana. So what’s that story?

 

[ 00:14:04,890 ] I moved here seven and a half years ago. It was pre-COVID. And I was building my organization underneath of another organization.

 

[ 00:14:14,900 ] talked to the CEO and I said, ‘Hey, if I had the best shot of building my business, where should I go?’ He said, ‘I go to the Midwest. We don’t have any leadership out there. Indiana would be a great spot. Nice.’ We moved out here seven and a half years ago, found ourselves in Fishers. Best move we’ve ever made. The only move that I’ll be making next will be South. Will be in addition to what we have here.

 

[ 00:14:37,200 ] And then a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, you know, type thing. Exactly.

 

[ 00:14:40,580 ] That’s great. So let’s talk about some of the books that, you know, if you had two books that you’d recommend to somebody, what would they be?

 

[ 00:14:46,840 ] Oh man, I don’t know if I could limit it to two books. What’s the first one that pops in your head? Winning Winning Winning by um, I’m having a blank. It was the trainer for Kobe and for Michael Jordan. And so in that book, he talks about how there’s so many more people and it’ll come to me because he’s a client of friends. Of mine, but he talks about how there’s so many more people that he trained and met that had more talent than the two of them, but they wanted it more. They showed up early and they stayed later. That would be one of them. Gotcha.

 

[ 00:15:17,200 ] So many different books. Flip the Switch is a good one that I just talked about. He’s talking about releasing the prey drive inside of you.

 

[ 00:15:25,720 ] There’s a book called Relentless that’s really good. As far as a business building book, one that I’ve found to be my business building Bible is called Up Your Business by Dave Anderson.

 

[ 00:15:39,829 ] I like all the John Gordon books. I think that’s really good for people just getting into business. Like the energy bus, getting the wrong people off the bus, the right people on, and in the right positions at that. You bet. Yeah, that’s awesome.

 

[ 00:15:54,360 ] Thinking Grow Rich is a good old favorite.

 

[ 00:15:56,640 ] Yes.

 

[ 00:15:59,440 ] Oh, man. Caught me off guard.

 

[ 00:16:02,090 ] So let’s talk about your personal journey a little bit. You know, you got family, college, that kind of, well, you went straight into the military. So at some point, did you get married? have kids? Yes. And did that start in Maryland or did that start here? Tell us about that.

 

[ 00:16:16,300 ] So I was born in Virginia. My parents went to Bible College down at Liberty University. I moved to Baltimore when I was two. My dad felt called to move to Baltimore. He didn’t know. Anyone started the church that’s where I spent most of my life. My wife and I are both from the outskirts of Baltimore. Okay, and uh, grew up the oldest of five kids. Uh, an. My dad was a pastor. He was really busy with the church. That wasn’t so connected with the family at that point. That’s kind of where I was lost. I didn’t really have that leadership in my life. I was kind of lost and didn’t know what I wanted to do. I had a friend of mine that was a volunteer fireman. So I started volunteering at 14. That made me have the desire. To become a career fireman. And here’s the thing. I think the reason I wanted to do that, I was able to see my dad help people his entire life. He just didn’t— he just wasn’t paid for the value that he brought. Me being an introvert, it was a way that I could still go make a difference with people without directly engaging with them in my comfort zone.

 

[ 00:17:17,930 ] So I love that. It was the best job in the world. Um, thought I’d do that forever. Sure. Uh, met my wife in a bar. Uh, actually, in Maryland. In Maryland, okay. My best friend in the fire department went to high school with her. She walked in with a couple of her friends, and I said, ‘Hey, who’s that?’ And she said, ‘And my buddy said, uh, she’s not your type.’ I said, ‘No, introduce me to her And so he introduced me to her, and I chased her for two weeks, and then the rest was history.

 

[ 00:17:46,570 ] So now we know what your interpretation of that first impression was. You wanted to be, yeah, what was hers? Now that you reflect back on it, have you had the conversation with her to say, ‘What was your impression when we got introduced?’

 

[ 00:17:58,730 ] I mean, she was definitely interested, but I think what had happened was her aunt was in town visiting. And for some reason, that was more important to her than me. And so she ignored me for two weeks and drove me nuts.

 

[ 00:18:11,930 ] Yeah, I like it.

 

[ 00:18:13,870 ] And then we were inseparable.

 

[ 00:18:16,470 ] Yeah, so next month will be our 17th anniversary. Okay, great. We’ve been together for 21 years. I’ve got three girls. My oldest just turned 15 last Friday. You’re in serious trouble. You know what? We talked about being a pastor’s kid. God has got a personality. And he said, ‘You are such a piece of…’ Crap as a teenager, I’m going to teach you your lesson.

 

[ 00:18:38,760 ] I’m going to give you three beautiful girls, and now you’re going to deal with thousands of boys.

 

[ 00:18:43,580 ] You, piece of crap, so what age is 15? And what are the 15? My middle girl is 13, and my baby, the firework, she turned nine on July.

 

[ 00:18:55,750 ] You, you’re gonna have uh, a lot of college coming up.

 

[ 00:18:58,350 ] Yes, you are, yeah.

 

[ 00:18:59,310 ] Yeah.

 

[ 00:19:00,420 ] Let me tell you a quick story about my youngest. My wife is a flight attendant for Southwest for 16 years, and she had a lot of sinus issues from the pressure changes. We took her in. Go get a sinus surgery. The one day. This is in Southern Pennsylvania, Maryland, that area. And the lady asked her, any chance you could be pregnant? I said, absolutely not. Not and she said, well, maybe they drew her blood and that’s when we found out that we were expecting the third one. My dad was living with us at the time. He told him, hey look, uh, no surgery today by the way, congratulations.

 

[ 00:19:34,290 ] Yeah, your grandpa.

 

[ 00:19:36,350 ] So what’s your weekends look like? Soccer. That’s what I was going to ask. Is it van patrol? That’s right. Yep.

 

[ 00:19:46,040 ] That’s right. I’ve got a motorcycle. I love to ride and do that when I can. And everybody in my family loves it, but most of the weekends are tied up in soccer. All three of them play it. My wife coaches it.

 

[ 00:19:57,179 ] Yeah. What club?

 

[ 00:19:59,180 ] Yeah. Uh well, uh, two of my girls play wreck, and my oldest one plays for um indie premiere. I had to think about it for a second. It’s like, where does she play?

 

[ 00:20:06,900 ] That’s where my son played for several years.

 

[ 00:20:08,720 ] Yeah, well, this is her second season with them. She loves it. Yeah, cool.

 

[ 00:20:14,320 ] Well, you got all that going on right. So life, right. Um, so you know, from a business standpoint, even a personal standpoint, you know, what do you see happening in the next couple of years? What’s happening in your world from your view, as an owner of a business, what do you worry about every day? What do you what do you see or what are you excited about. Yeah, correct.

 

[ 00:20:32,620 ] Yeah, yeah. You know, there’s there’s a there’s a lot out there and um. We’ve made a couple of pivots in our business recently. I had to go through a correction this past year where I actually lost a seven-figure income and actually had to… start over from some things outside of my control. And so, what we’re focused on right now in our business, really, is recession and economy. me proof. So really, what we’re focused on is super, super simple. We’re the main thing that I’m hiring people to do is to help senior citizens on a fixed income, be able to take care of the burial needs through cremation or burial through an insurance policy. It’s recession proof. There’s 10,500 people a day being born. They’re all going to die. They’ve all got family they love. And they’ve all got income and it’s got to happen no matter what. So the economy is not going to affect me on that level. What it does affect me on is finding people that are entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurial minded individuals who have the financial resources that it takes to start a business and to be able to get through the learning curve long enough to make it, you know.

 

[ 00:21:37,340 ] But I believe that’s what our country needs right now. I believe our country needs more jobs created through business ownership versus people taking jobs through employment.

 

[ 00:21:47,740 ] Yeah. Why do you feel that way? Not that we don’t agree with you, but I just want to hear it from you.

 

[ 00:21:52,230 ] Well, because I don’t think the pilgrims came over in the Mayflower for good benefits or good education or a good job. They came over for the… freedom to fall on their face and screw it up or to make a mess or to do whatever, as long as it was their choice. Right.

 

[ 00:22:03,960 ] We didn’t throw tea in the harbor for no reason. Yeah. Right. Exactly.

 

[ 00:22:07,220 ] Right. So, so what’s it take? I mean, you’re obviously recruiting for people like that. What do you see being a common thread of the people that come into your sphere that do succeed?

 

[ 00:22:18,870 ] I mean, they’re not all like you, right? Everybody’s different. So, what, but what do you, what do you see in them? What, what do you see that’s, you know, literally says you can do this.

 

[ 00:22:29,640 ] You know, that’s a good question. There’s a lot of, and I don’t know that my picker works, right? Because there’s a lot of people that I’ve seen, I thought, ‘man, they are going to do really well.’ And they’re out within a few weeks. And then I’ve seen people I thought this guy didn’t have a shot and then end up being one of the best. Right. So I don’t have the ability to judge the heart. Someone, but success does leave clues. Sure. And so, a lot of times we hire a lot of great people that are not the right people. That maybe it’s not the right timing for that person. We just had this conversation. I’ve got two partners. My dad is one of my partners now, and I’ve got another guy that’s been with me for over a decade that I met. A partner this year. And we meet every Friday morning. And that’s one of the things we’ve been talking about— is that we can hire a lot of great people, that may even be the right people, but it might not be the right people. Right time, sure you know? Because it, you can’t serve two masters. Right if you’re gonna make building a business in the United States of America one of the most difficult things to do, you can’t build multiple ones at the same time.

 

[ 00:23:32,820 ] Not when you’re starting out, not without one being established. I think that some people, I think a lot of people, and I’m jumping around with this topic here, but I think a lot of people, uh, misunderstand the um, the concept of multiple streams of income. Sure right. You’re gonna work really hard and get really good at one thing, and then create that income, then use that income through investing to go create multiple streams of income. You don’t try to build three businesses at once, and you can’t build a business. While you’re working a job, unless there’s a transition process where you’re planning to go from one to the other, because you can’t serve two masters. And you’re going to fail at both of them. So I give everybody a shot, but I do have a profile that I look for.

 

[ 00:24:16,670 ] And I just kind of lay it out. I mean, you asked me what I look for. I look for people that have a background in the military. I look for people that have a background in sports. Both of them, because they’re used to being on a team, they understand that the team is more important than them. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, to go together. Failure happens in isolation. Success happens in community. I’m creating a community of like-minded people that are going the same direction. One plus one isn’t two. Now it’s 11. Because now, when I walk through that minefield, I can show you the exact footprints to step in. I can shorten your learning curve and, together, we can both go further faster.

 

[ 00:24:59,540 ] Man, you are a walking one-line guy. I’m serious. And authentically, right? I don’t mean that as a slight at all. I mean, wow.

 

[ 00:25:07,560 ] It makes sense because you’re hiring people from the military with a process background. If they’re process-driven, they can follow the process in the system. And with sports, they’re learning to play as a team player, but they’re also driven to win.

 

[ 00:25:20,110 ] Yeah. And you know what? When I interview people, I really could give two craps about a resume. I don’t look at a resume. Any idiot can make a resume look impressive. And there can be some fantastic, incredible people that don’t know how to put a resume together. I don’t care what you’ve done in the past. I don’t care how you failed in the past. I don’t care. You’ve won in the past. Where are you in life now? What are you tired of? And what are you willing to sacrifice to change that? And if that aligns, let’s run. You got it.

 

[ 00:25:50,400 ] So how are you finding those people now?

 

[ 00:25:53,830 ] That’s it. Well, really, a lot of it is— I’ve done a lot of these. I’ve done a lot of podcasts. I’ve got a lot of stuff out there on social media. I’ve talked to a lot of places.

 

[ 00:26:03,840 ] Got people that see these things and they reach out to me and yeah, that’s where most of most of it’s coming from right now yeah. Take a little break on the marketing calls just because of the transition that we’re we’re pulling ourself out of currently. Sure, but um, but yeah, most people are come to me, thankfully, at this point.

 

[ 00:26:21,640 ] Yeah, that is good. Consistency, right? The people watching this that need to see it, what do you want to tell them?

 

[ 00:26:27,970 ] Well, I’m looking for people that have a dream. I’m looking for people that are sick and tired of being sick and tired that maybe you’re successful at what you’re doing and you’ve hit the ceiling. There’s no place for you to advance from where you’re at. And you’re a hard worker. But if you kept working just like you are now, but you had a better track—what the ceiling would be removed. If you were climbing a ladder and it was thrown into the wrong building, how soon would you want to know? There’s nothing easy about what I do. There’s nothing hard about what I do. It’s very, very simple. We make it hard, right? We make it hard because of this. But here’s the thing. It’s going to take four letters. It’s going to take work. I think so many people see social media. And they see success and they think that it’s yachts and planes and time with your family. And yes, it can lead to that one day through a bunch of hard, hard work. But here’s what business ownership really is. It’s lonely. It’s dirty. It’s cutthroat. It’s a lot of time away from your family.

 

[ 00:27:29,580 ] I’ve missed holidays. I’ve missed summers. My family went on vacation this year for a month without me because I had to stay back and I had to build my business. I didn’t have to. I wanted to because there’s something that, if you took my dream away from me, I’d be a hollow shell. That’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking for the people that have to do it. The people that are running from something because they want to make sure that their family has got an opportunity they didn’t have.

 

[ 00:27:55,600 ] So you just simply have to be at the point that where you’re at is not okay. And there’s nothing that you’re not willing to do to change it. And all it takes— if someone is willing, and it’s not easy, but if you can sit on the phone for six to eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, I can show the average person how to make a six-figure income working 40 hours a week. Awesome. But they have to be willing to put in the work. Right. And a lot of people lie to themselves about what that work is. That work is not checking emails. It’s not doing this and it’s doing that. Right. It’s talking to clients or showing other people how to do that. That’s it.

 

[ 00:28:32,300 ] And having an internal conversation like this, this is what I need to be doing.

 

[ 00:28:36,940 ] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I like to lay it out and say, ‘This is what it’s going to take.’ You make the decision. But, you know, I’m not a micromanager. I’m not a boss. You’re 1099. I hire people 1099. They’re subcontractors as their own business owners. But I provide the track. I provide the training. I come in and hold their hand and help them get up and launched.

 

[ 00:28:59,220 ] Gotcha.

 

[ 00:28:59,990 ] Awesome.

 

[ 00:29:00,390 ] Just got to want it more than I do.

 

[ 00:29:02,230 ] So how do those people reach you? I know it sounds simple— question, but how do they find you?

 

[ 00:29:05,770 ] Yeah, well, they can go to one of my websites, such as ‘getstarted. trustworthy.life.’ There’s some videos and some information on there. You can find me on social media. My Facebook page is Michael A. Hall. My Instagram page is mahall79. Got it. Awesome. Appreciate it.

 

[ 00:29:25,190 ] Yeah, thanks for coming on man, thanks for having me.

 

[ 00:29:27,770 ] It’s so great to be on a local podcast and, oh yeah, I get to meet you guys. So thank you likewise. Yeah. Thanks. Yes, sir. Thanks for what you’re doing.