Founder Of GIVERS University: EA Csolkovits AKA The Giving Boss – S3E01 (#97)

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Boss Uncaged is a weekly podcast that releases the origin stories of business owners and entrepreneurs as they become uncaged trailblazers. In each episode, our host, S.A Grant and guests construct narrative accounts of their collective business journeys and growth strategies, learn key success habits, and how to stay motivated through failure, all while developing a Boss Uncaged mindset. Break out of your cage and welcome our host, S.A Grant.

Welcome back to Boss Uncaged podcast. On today’s show, we have one of Shy Town’s finest, and we just had like, a little sidebar conversation about my name being SA and his name being EA. And we don’t even want to get into what these abbreviations stand for, but I’m going to deem this individual the Giving Boss, and once he starts speaking, you’re going to understand exactly why. So without further ado, the floor is yours, EA. That’s great. And you think both of us are from Canada because you’d be SA EA.

We’re from the US. Anyway, I appreciate the opportunity to be on your show and I love your format and the free flowing and how you share with your listeners. And I think we need more formats where there’s sort of a no holds barred because some people are so afraid to say stuff and they’re so afraid to bring up things that need to be brought up and things that need to be discussed. My hats off to your essay and also to boss on Cage. I think it’s a great format. Thank you for having me on.

Definitely. I appreciate it. It’s getting to the point, like, with this particular show, it’s like I think I’ve had a couple of tears here and there. I’m hoping we don’t have full fledged out tiers and napkins coming out sooner or later on the show, but it could definitely go down that route. So, I mean, if you could define yourself in three to five words, what three to five words would you choose to define yourself?

A person who is committed to teaching people to discern.

That’s interesting. That’s definitely interesting. You want to kind of, like, dive into that a little bit more, for sure.

And I can share with your listeners, by way of a question, exactly how that’s answered. If right now your listeners thought about the fires that they stomp out each day, if they thought about when their stress level spikes each day, and when they think about the energy drainers where they just talk with someone on the phone, they have no idea what they talked about other than the fact they now have no more energy left. Every one of those instances, every fire, every stress spike, all have one thing in common. They have a name attached. There’s a name attached to that. And so what we do at Givers University with discerning, as we have a saying that is givers earn three times more because givers discern three times more. And by that what we mean as follows. First of all, I want to say we love everybody. We love everybody. I say that emphatically. And we teach people how to discern and separate the person who we love from their deeds, which we may not love. And what we do is so when we use the term giver and taker, we’re not labeling people. We don’t label people, but what we are doing is labeling their deeds. We’re labeling the deeds our givers or taker. And then we actually teach people how to discern. And here’s the critical part. Here’s what no one’s teaching today. Essay and over and over again, I do at least one podcast a day as a guest and everyone agrees it’s just not being taught. And it needs to be the following reference how do I decide what people when I watch what they do, I should decide to bring those people in closer to me and become a part of my give or community or because I’m watching what they’re doing. And I should think about starting to respectfully distance myself. Respectfully, not nasty, respectfully distance myself from them because I’m about ready to become collateral damage because of what they bring with them. And no one is teaching people how to discern. What do you look for? I’m a selfimprovement geek. I love selfimprovement. I think it’s important. I can tell you are as well, and I’m sure many of your listeners are. And that’s great. We need to look in the mirror. But also essay what about the other guy? What if he’s not doing it right? What happens then? We become these unwilling participants in these fires that we stomp out and have to stop out that are not of our making because no one taught us what to look for. What are the deeds? Not the person. Remember, we’re not judging the person, we’re judging the deeds of that person. So companies coming and going faster than ever before, products antiquated like never before, over and over again. What do we have left? Relationships and no one’s teaching us. What do you look for? The deeds that helps us discern who we should have closer in our life and who we should maybe respectfully distance ourselves from because of what’s about ready to happen and what they bring with them.

That’s definitely it’s an interesting philosophy. So, I mean, obviously, I think that’s why you have the branded that you currently have, right?

For sure.

Let’s talk about your journey, right? I mean, looking at your history, looking at your credential, I think one thing that I read was you became a millionaire in your early 20s. Like, you were a CEO and you were a VP. You all these different things. So let’s take it even further back. How does a kid that grew up potentially in shy town become who you are today? What does that journey look like?

Well, I tell you, I love sharing that journey. And in a transparent, brutal way of even my big defeats, because I’d love to be able to share those essays with your listeners so they can learn, then also have them say, hey, you know what? That’s me. I got that. I hear that. I was born in Chicago area. My father was a milkman. Back then, milk came in glass jugs, and there was a box outside every home, and you knew that box was the milkman box. And we put milk in there and the glass jugs, and there was money in there all the time. And you know what? No one ever touched the money. They knew there was milkman money, right? And so my father had a distributor for a company called twin Oaks, his own little one horse thing. And I was the son of a milkman. That was my mindset. And then I say I really elevated myself all the way up to the level of janitor. That’s what makes but I didn’t mind that because business was always picking up. What anyway. But as a janitor, I had two really interesting things happen that were really life changing. Being in Chicago originally, I live in Michigan now, but the first 30 years of my life, I hailed from Chicago greater Chicago land area and oakbrook area, specifically western suburb. And I was able to be bonded, and I was able to clean a home that was a very expensive home. And the lady’s name was June Martino. Now, I don’t know if you ever saw the movie with Michael Keaton called the founder about McDonald’s. Of course you did see it.

Definitely. I watched okay.

Yeah, I got it. Well, actually, there’s many references in there that are true, but I lived it. I literally was right there. And June Martino is the gal outside Ray Croc’s office that always talks to June. June, june, his secretary. That’s her, right? That’s this lady I’m talking to. I’m cleaning her house every single week. I’m in her home, right? And obviously, in the movie, that’s an actress. It’s not June, but the real June Martino, if you will, one day. And she was always really approachable, easy to talk to. One day, I just said, june, can I ask you a question? She said, sure. She knew who I was because I was in there every week, and she always said hi. And I always said hi back. Very nice, very nice and approachable. And I said, could you tell me about it? And she said, like what? And I said, McDonald’s, I’m not kidding you. I say she put her arm around me, brought me in the kitchen, and the entire day, because I asked her this in the morning, the entire day, she told me the entire story from beginning to that moment in time. We were sitting she even had the maids and ballets to bring us food in the kitchen because she just was telling me the whole story, every single tiny detail. And I got to tell you, I’m just sitting there and I’m staring at, oh, my God, this is DJune Martino, and she’s telling me all of it. So the movie, I can tell you, was very Hollywoodized. Ray wasn’t really that way. He had his moments and everything, but that was Hollywood. And there was a lot of references of things that did happen, which is also accurate, but there was a lot of spin on it. So one of the things that was interesting in the story that June told me, she lived it. She was there. She said there was a time where Ray couldn’t afford to pay her. And they made an agreement that Ray would take her bill collectors when they called, and he would take the phone calls so she didn’t get bugged by him, and he would pay her in exchange because he couldn’t afford to pay her money, stock. And at that time, which was a worthless company, in the movie, they do reference it. Do you remember when Ray Crock, Michael Keen, calls the brothers and said, I can’t make enough money. He was getting, like, less than 2%.

Yeah, it was crazy.

Not enough money. That part is true. That’s the part that I’m referencing here. He didn’t have the money to pay her, so he gave her worthless stock. And the company, it was literally worthless. It was underwater. So I asked her why she did it. She looked at me and sat back, and I’ll never forget not only what she said, but the way she said it, because this night, no 16 year old Janitor just asked her a question no one else had ever asked her before, and she wasn’t even sure how she should answer it. And she stared at me with this faraway look. You’ve ever had someone do that where you can tell they’re not home, but they’re looking right at you? She was there thinking about why she did it. And then she said, when I asked her, Why did you do it? She said, because I believed in Ray. And my first thought essay instantly, was, man, I got to find me a Ray Croc. I’ve got to find a Ray Croc that can teach me, that can put me under his wing and teach me all the stuff I don’t know because I’m a burnt out son of a milkman. And a fun time in my life is getting three songs in a bowling alley at 200 in the morning when I’m cleaning it. That’s the big thing, right? So I thought, I got to get a crock. I pulled her Rolls Royce out of the garage and sweep the garage. I’m thinking, I think people really live like this. And she’s not an alien. She’s not a superhero or something. She’s actually very approachable and easy to talk to. I thought, Man, I just don’t know what I need to do. I don’t know what to do. Hence, I learned the value of a really good mentor. It wasn’t a couple of months later that I then met mentor having to do the same janitorial service. Got a phone call late at night, and I’m only there. I’m there with the owner of the company, and he said, there’s a guy coming in from Detroit and he’s open a diamond store and he wants to see some carpeting. And I said, Jerry, I punched out already. They had punch clock, time clock. You felt like punching it out? You really felt like that, right? You punched out? You felt like punching out. And I said, Jerry, I’m done. I already punched out. I’m done. He said, I’ll tell you what he said. He’s leaving tomorrow for the airport. He said, if you show him the carpeting, I’ll tell you what to do, and I’ll give you any Saturday off you want. I said, that’s a big deal for janitors because businesses are closed, so we’re cleaning on Saturdays, right? So when you get a Saturday off, that’s like super duper. How did you pull that one off? Right? So I repeat it back, okay? Any Saturday I want. Yep, you got a deal. I said, okay, I punched back in. Now, essay to set the stage. I’m going begrudgingly based on a negotiation to get off a Saturday dragging my feet to meet a man who will change my life forever. So I share with your listeners. Be careful because sometimes discern. Be aware, because sometimes the most significant things that will happen in your life will happen because of something so insignificant at the moment and it seems so insignificant. And here I am, and I meet this man, and it was like I knew him before. We had an immediate rapport. We talked. I mean, we talked about everything. Carpeting wasn’t going to work. We just had commercial grade, and he wanted something real plus for a diamond store. And I just had this great conversation with this guy for a couple of hours. And we talked about anything and everything, right? I knew him before. Have you ever had that? When you met someone and you felt like you knew him before? Right. It was that kind of dialogue. So anyway, I’m leaving the property. There was nothing there for him. So as I’m leaving, he offered me a job, and he said, Why don’t you come work for me? And I said, no. I don’t think about diamonds. I’m a janitor. All I know is someday a woman’s going to ask me for one and that they’re expensive. That’s all I know. He said, I’ll teach you. I said no. I’m all set. My future is all set. I’m a janitor. People are going to make messages and I’ll pick it up. My future is all set. And as I was leaving, he hooked me. And I found out later on how smart he really was. He knew exactly what to say to grind me. And as I was walking out the door, I say, he said, what do you got to lose? You could always go back being a janitor. And I thought, no, I’m all set. I’m a janitor. When I walked out the door, I left, got about halfway home, and it was bugging me. Every mile I drove, it was bugging me more and more. He’s right. When I got to lose, I can go back. And Jerry will always take me back to the January service. I can always go back there. So I said, Well, I’m going to see what he has in mind. He’s probably gone. It’s almost midnight at this point. He’s leaving for the airport. I go back, he’s there, and I said, what do you have in mind? He offered me a job for the next four months essay. I got in the car in Chicago at four in the morning, friday night, Saturday morning, four in the morning, drove 301 miles. I remember specifically all the way to Detroit, met with them for 6 hours, ask every question I could think of, got back in a car and drove all the way home all in one day. And did that every single weekend for four months and never once missed a weekend. So people can’t tell me if you want something bad enough that you got to be willing to go after it and do what’s required to get it. And I wanted the knowledge. I knew, I didn’t know I was a burnt out janitor. So here he was, and he taught me. And really he began to rewire those burnt out wires essay that were in my mind because I was thinking wrong. I didn’t know how to think. I was just a janitor picking up clean bowling alleys. That was at two in the morning. So Sam, my business mentor, began to rewire me and separately from other business interests, he then began to mentor me. And that really led to my first major defeat in life, which is each one of my defeats was more mind boggling the last. Each one of them caused me to write a different book, to deal with it, and to help myself never be in that position again, because it was a defeat. And the first major feat defeat came about from still in Chicago at the time. And the odds are so against the story of what happened. It’s mindblowing like your story.

Yeah, I’m just listening to what you said. So just to kind of just recap for the listeners a little bit, right. So in this journey you had an opportunity that could have been a missed opportunity. You walked away from it, but then you turned around and you’re like, let me see what this is really about. So then in that opportunity, and this is kind of where we’re leading into the next part of the story is you took the opportunity, you seized the moment, and that changed your life. If you didn’t take that opportunity, you probably wouldn’t be where you are currently today.

Is that no question? No question about you’re? Exactly right. And that’s why when we discern and we’re aware, we’ll look at things a little bit differently, which is what we do at university, we teach people how to discern. Specifically, what do you look for with a person? And that all started really because of this first major defeat I had, which is pretty extraordinary. I had a training company in Berkeley, Illinois, again, another suburb of Chicago. Chicago has got a lot of suburbs, right? And the area and the company was doing very well. We were training other companies and multiple offices doing very well. And back then, essay, they had a thing that sat on the desk that was called a voice answering machine. And on one side it had a cassette tape that you recorded your outgoing message when people called you. And on the right side was a cassette tape. And those were cassette tapes, little tape. And it was 60 minutes long for all the messages that people would leave you when they called you and you weren’t home. So it was 60 minutes tape left home for an hour and a half. I come back, I look, and the whole tape is used up. Then that’s crazy. Some kids must have got a hold of it because my machine is voice actuated. That means as long as someone talk, they would keep recording. And then when the kids found out, sometimes they would play with it because they realized they could just keep recording. Some kids got a hold of it. Wow, was I about ready to get the shock of my life up to that point so I could hear my business partner in this training company. We both had 50%. Essay separate this is not my business mentor. He’s mentoring me on the site. We both own 50% of this company, the trading company. And he was leaving me a message. He called me while I was gone and left me a message. And back then when someone was calling in, you could hear a little tone in the back and that would let you know someone’s calling, right. I could hear as he left me the message that beep in the background that someone was calling him. He hit his phone receiver so fast and said, hello. He put my machine on recording with him and the other person and recorded the whole conversation.

Talking about the inside tips.

Yes, but wait, the whole conversation was about how they were going to take over the company and basically get rid of me. It was the plan, step by step. And this blew my mind. I had no way of knowing this was coming. A total blind side I played. I just couldn’t believe it, because essay when you hear it in their own words, so different than third party, I’m hearing the plan from them. And I thought, man, what are the odds of this? First of all, he could have called me when I was home. But no, he called when I was gone. The other guy could have not called him or when he did call him, they could have talked about golf. No, they talked about the plan in detail. It blew my mind. And one of the things my business mentor had trained me on was to respond. Don’t react. May I explain? In the medical community, if someone gave someone a drug or prescription or something and the doctor says they’re reacting, that’s not good. We know they’re not doing good on the medication. If doctor says they’re responding, that’s good. They’re doing good in the medication. And my business mentor always said he drilled it in me essay, do not let your emotions control your intellect, because when your emotions are controlling your intellect, you are now reacting. Don’t be in reaction mode. It’s always a loser situation. Be in a responsive mode. And the way you do that is you make sure your intellect is controlling your emotions. So I had to reach back to my training. I had to reach to my mentor saying, because of this event, because, let me tell you, my emotions were wanting to rule sleepless night and everything else. And I thought, oh, man, what am I going to do? I don’t want this guy my partner, and he can’t deny this. There’s no misunderstanding here’s. The plan in his own, the two of them, the words step by step even. It’s not even over. It’s not general. It’s step by step. So the next day, I say, jim, you have to buy me out. We’re going to part ways. I want to do something with my business mentor, some other venture, and we need to part ways. We have seven days. Let’s draft this agreement, grow. Well, within seven days, we did. And I got a couple of payments from him on the business. And quite candidly, I thought they were gifts. I didn’t expect them. But here’s the thing. I never told him. I never told him about the recording, and he’s passed on now. So he never knew. I never, ever told him. But the next year, my income doubled. The next year, he filed for personal bankruptcy. He filed for business bankruptcy. He got divorced. And I saw him at an amusement park, at a little distance. I knew he was I mean, my business partner. I knew who he was. He didn’t see me, but I saw him. He looked at Say like he had aged 20 years. And I thought, Boy, that doesn’t show what the difference is. So here’s the thing that we need to understand. I want to share with your listeners. Every adversity in life carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. Every, not some, not once in a while, not here and there. Every adversity in life carries with the deceit of an equal or greater benefit. It’s up to us to find it. And I did. And I went on with my business mentor because I knew this guy was not going to he didn’t want him in my life. And that caused me to write the first book called The Givers Mindset on how givers think differently than takers in that book. And in that course, we identified the six arrows, which, by the way, is one of the things we’re going to give to your listeners. Absolutely free. It’s a checklist of the six arrows that takers are shooting at you every day and you don’t even know why you’re hurting and you’re bleeding because no one taught them what the arrows look like and they look at them and go, does this need to be taught? I don’t know. Remember, we’re talking about deeds, not the person we’re labeling the deeds. So we give them the six arrows that take or shoot. There’s also a list a couple of days later we give them what’s called the 25 dues. All this is free. We want to give it to them because it’s tangible, usable things. Like an example with a couple of the arrows. I’ll give you a couple of them just for your listeners. And they’ll get in a checklist. So they’ll see this stuff and it really helps them begin to discern. One of the things that a taker will do is they will switch from fact based moral high ground to low personal attacks. In other words, they will say things like you don’t know what you’re talking about. Well, that’s an attack. You don’t know what you’re talking about. They’re saying, I don’t know what I’m talking about. How do they know that? Right. Takers, very quickly when they run out of fact based information, will now switch gears from the facts and go into the personal attack that’s one of the arrows they shoot are these personal attacks that they and they’re tricky. You don’t see them. They come at you fast. They will also say things like you don’t know me. Well, it’s a ridiculous statement. Of course I don’t. None of us know each other unless we actually walk in those shoes. We really don’t know them. But the implication is it’s an arrow. They’re shooting at them, right? So the one arrow is takers will switch from actual based conversations. The moral high ground lower. I’m going to do personal tax on you because everything left, right, second arrow I’ll share with is that takers will transfer guilt or attempt to transfer guilt from the taker to the giver. The taker will transfer that. They will say, you made me angry. They can’t do that. That’s actually not a true statement. No one can make anyone else angry. The other person can allow someone says something to me, I can allow them to make me angry, but they didn’t make me angry. I let it happen. I let my emotions do what rule my intellect. So what happened? That instances now. So that’s what happens with them when these arrows come at them. They actually try to transfer the guilt. They say you made me do it. You can’t make someone else do it. As it relates to normal conversations with people. So these are the errors. And when we teach people be discerning when you see these certain deeds in the first course the givers mindset, we actually have 25 do’s that. We’re going to give your listeners absolutely free. They’re going to get it in a download. We want them to have it because we’re all beneficiaries when we have the right people in our life. So these 25 dues as an example, takers one of the dues, it’s actually a two page checklist where they can look at it and say man, I need to watch when people do these things and then it’ll help me decide do I want them closer in my life or should I be respectfully distancing myself so I don’t become collateral damage from what they bring? With a couple of dues, takers are not willing to do the thing to get the thing. As we say in Germans University, do the thing to get the thing, do not the thing, get something else. Takers are never willing to do what it takes. They’re always fast tracking, they’re always looking for the shortcut. They’re always looking for the way to get around what really needs to be done. And one of the things you can watch and you could see a giver will always step forward and say I’ll do what it takes. They’ll be the first one to step forward and a taker won’t do that. Another thing is takers are not willing to delay gratification to increase the returns. They’re right now me first, me for everyone else I got to take care of. Number one, pay me before we talk. Pay me before I do anything. They’re never willing to invest in a situation and that’s part of the definition of givers and takers. 20% of the population are givers. They’re wired that way. 20%. We’ve proven the numbers even that means you put 20% of the people, I say in any situation and sure enough they’ll start giving to it. They’ll start contributing, they’ll start investing, they’ll start helping. By contrast, the other end 20% of the population are takers. You put these people in any situation and they’re going to craft away to take from it. Emotionally, mentally, spiritually, financially, they’re takers. That’s what they do. The 60% in the middle, we call them fencers. They sit on the fence, they act like givers when they’re with givers. They act like takers when they’re with takers. They can be great relationships but we need to manage them. So how do we find out what’s the things we look for so that we know who to bring in close in. Our lives because our happiness level will go way up, our stress level plummets, and we’re not going to feel like someone just drained our energy from us all the time. In fact, we’ll be recharged because we got the right people around us. And I bet you your listeners can think of people that are draining energy or constantly, every time talking, they’re putting out a fire. That’s how we learn these things. And this is all in The Giver’s Mindset, the first book, if you will. But we have a quiz for you that we could talk about at the end of the podcast. And we have people do the seven question quiz, and then with their results, they get these checklists. We want them to have them because everyone benefits when they start discerning, because everything’s so fast today. No one’s paying attention anymore to the relationship part. They’re looking in the mirror, and that’s good.

So, I mean, it seems like your business is structured with multiple different facets, multiple different levels, and it took you a period of time to get there. So the next question is, how is that business structured? Is it structured? More so. Like an LLC, an S corp or.

C Corp givers University. Yeah, Givers University is just a standard business, and we set it up that way. Of all the things you said, I’ve had C Corps, Scorp, LLCs, add them all, and they all have the different benefits and structures wise, based on double taxation and basically based on whether we have a pro business government in place or an anti business government in place, has an impact on what kind of business you want to have. And also if you want to go public, you want to go public, you want to have a C Corporation. S Corporation is going to be tougher. LLC really tough. So it depends on what your ultimate needs are. And this we just set it up as a regular business because the intention of Givers University is to share and teach. And so we have online courses where they go, and we have audio courses, et cetera. So it’s a little bit different than if someone had like a brick and mortar kind of place where they were selling the product out of there or service or something.

Got you. So we always hear about the 20 years it takes someone to be successful. And I think in this conversation, we kind of jump 30 years back. We talked about ten years. We talked about in your beginnings and the perception, because somebody seeing this episode may look at you and say, okay, he’s overnight success. It only took him a few years to get there. But in reality, how long have you been on your journey to get you to where you are currently?

45 plus years. I’m 65, so I had a good 45 solid years. And the best parts, as I look in retrospect, cliches are cliches. The reason they’re cliches. They’re usually true. That’s why they’re cliches. Usually. Not always, but usually sometimes they’re just stupid things. People say cliche. And with hindsight, we do have perfect vision, and we can look back and I can share with you that my defeats were blessings. Because one of the things my business mentor taught me, Essay, was don’t use the word failure. Eliminate it from your dictionary. Supplanted with the word temporary defeat.

Failure sounds so eternal, like forever kind of thing. He said, it’s a temporary defeat. He said, and a temporary defeat means you might have just gotten tackled. And he said, and watch how fast you find out that when you got tackled, you just got a first down. How important is that, right? So it’s a direct benefit of looking for those good things as they happen in our life. So, yeah, 45 plus years, and I can tell you I’m still going strong. Love it. Better shape than I’ve ever been in my life. And also surrounded with just spectacular people that add so much to my life.

And I do everything I can to add so much to their life, too. Wow.

Very powerful stuff. So let’s say if you could go back anywhere in your 45 year history of being a business owner, is there one thing that you would want to manipulate, modify, or change to get you to where you are a lot faster?

No, not one. I apologize. It seems like the grass cutters just decided to come up my window. So I don’t know if you can hear that or not, but the good news is they don’t stick around long, but they’re cutting the grass right outside my window. So I don’t know if that’s coming through or not. Hopefully it’s not. If I was to change anything, I would be hard pressed, and I’d have to use the answer and glamon to the answer that Walt Disney once gave, who I love studying. Walt, a lot of people don’t realize he genuinely had a full blown nervous breakdown and had to leave Disney for a full year. I saw the interview of him where he talks about he said, you know, when I answered the phone, I would break into tears for no reason. He said, the stress level is so high for a year, he had a full blown nervous breakdown, had to leave Disney for a whole twelve months, left the company. And you wouldn’t know that by looking at Disney World today, would you? Or certainly his successes. But I remember an interview he had, which is the answer I’m going to glam onto. And that was when they asked him, would you do it again the same way? His answer was, yes, I would, but I sure hope I don’t have to. I had to tell you the same thing because here’s a challenge for your listeners, because it was a challenge for me. Essay what I’m about to say is going to sound so netherworldly and so wacky and out there. But when our wisdom increases, we begin to understand it. When we learn how to embrace, put our arms around temporary defeat and realize that every adversity carries with the seed of an equal or greater benefit, we then know we just got a great seed and we can find it somewhere. And every adversity I had, the three biggies that each caused me to write a book. Every one of those three, every one of them had a seed. And what was interesting was the bigger the defeat, the bigger the benefit that came out of it. They were in direct proportion. And when I had a radio talk show, I was on there for five nights a week for two years back in 91 92, I interviewed millionaires of companies and every one of them essay, every single one of them had commonalities. One of the commonalities were they all had a time in their life when everyone and everything told them to stop and they took one more step. Every one of them had that story and they all had to be presidents of companies, millionaires to be in the business. You know Kinko’s print shop? Kinko got its name, the guy’s hair. He was a college kid and that was his nickname in college. And he sold that company to Federal Express for 1.2 billion with a B billion dollars named after his nickname when he was in college. How great is that? You just got to love it. So I wouldn’t change any of it. I wouldn’t looking back in retrospect, every single one of those things were a blessing. And that’s the difference between education and wisdom. I’m not saying I’m all wise and all that. I’m not, believe me. I tell you. In fact, every day I find out how little I really know. And it seems to be less as time goes on as our awareness level increases. I’ve met a lot of educated idiots in my life. When I say educated, and I’m saying this in a loving way, I don’t mean to mean anyone, I’m labeling their deeds. They have all of this knowledge and don’t know how to apply any of it. Because wisdom is knowing what to do and when to do it.

Very true.

And books don’t teach you how to do that. So we want to surround ourselves with people that have what we call the three W’s that a giver brings with wisdom, wealth and wellness and the deeds we teach teach people how to look for what’s the specific tiny little thing they’re doing that I should be watching for that when I see those things, I want to pull that person in closer. That’s the kind their symptoms, their deeds are showing me. That’s the kind of person I want.

So with that, I think a lot of this is kind of like the rich dad, poor dad model, right? I mean, you were essentially raised by a dad that had some entrepreneurial spirit to him. You also essentially raised by your mentor in the business side of things, right. Were there any other entrepreneurs in your background that helped you on your journey?

The biggest impact I had was my business mentor. And that’s why I recommend for your listeners, get a mentor. If you don’t have one, be selective. Use our checklist. When you decide. When you’re deciding who’s going to be your mentor because you want to listen to the right people, ask the wrong question, get the wrong answer, ask the wrong question to the wrong person, you’re definitely going to get the wrong answer. You want to have the right person and also ask the right question. So my business mentor, because you said it right essay, he became the father I never had. Even though I had a father. I became the son he never had. Even though he had a son. We really were that close, right. What a blessing that was. So for your listeners, get a mentor and also mentor others. Because as you get it, as you get that, part of what we need to do is pass it on. That’s what we do at Gibberish University. We pass it on so that other people can benefit by the things not being taught today. Sam, my mentor, definitely the number one. The other were a combination of my defeats. Taught me lessons because I didn’t rather than letting it destroy me, I thought, well, what can I learn by this? What can I learn to not be in this situation again? The writing of the books to help cover my butt so that I didn’t get in those situations again. Right. I don’t want to be here again. This is nasty. Right? And then also the interviews I had when I was on the radio for two years, I interviewed three millionaires every hour. Once. It was an hour show. Monday to Friday. And three millionaires on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And the best part I said was I got to ask them questions off the air, which I had predetermined, which were all into my book of knowledge and all of that work into. So that was it. Interviewing over a thousand millionaires and 1000 business owners and asking them the questions that I was hoping no one else had asked, like I asked you to. Martino. Those things are the things that impacted me most. Cool.

So, I mean, even on that journey, right. I think a lot of people, once they hit a level of success, they kind of put the blinders to the family. And in your model, it seems like you’re really big on balancing things and having equality across whatever it is you’re working on. So family being a part of that currently, how do you juggle your work life with your family life?

Great question. I love that question. One of the things we teach. And one of the things I live, because as leaders essay with all of your listeners, we all talk and we all walk, but no matter what, our walk talks louder than our talk. So the way we walk and the things we do, we teach people what we call a five priorities. And that helps us keep in balance, keep those five priorities and realign them. Intelligent design number one, family number two. So we got intelligent design, family. Then after that, country. Then after that, business. And then after that, south. And what happens today is they put the fifth one first and they don’t understand why things aren’t working. And if you notice, family is number two, and that’s very important. They do exactly what you said. I know some great nutshell and the way you said it, they do, they sort of kick their family to the side and well, I’ll have time for that later. I have time for kids later, I’ll have time for this later. No, you don’t do it now. And we teach people once a week, realign, revisit your priorities and make sure you haven’t gotten off the rails, reassess, realign, get back in line. So five priorities is the answer and they have them in order, intelligence, design, family, country, business, self, in that order.

So I think you’re a very structured individual. Your level of energy, you bring it to the table, right? So, I mean, part of that would be kind of like your morning routines. What are your morning routines, your morning habits look like?

That’s an interesting question. I have actually not been asked that before on a podcast. Thank you. I love new questions and that’s a good one. Well, I get up at 06:00 and part of that is because I hear the coffee machine go off and I don’t use an alarm clock. I don’t believe in them. I tell myself at night before I go to sleep what time I’m going to wake up and that’s what time I wake up. We all have a clock in sight of us. I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe in snooze buttons. If I need to have a snooze button, I’m not too excited about where I’m going in life. I need to get my butt out of that, right? So get up at six and then the first thing I do is after a quick step to the washroom and I come back and then I actually have a portable cardio thing. That’s a bike. It’s a great thing. So I sit on there and I sit in my chair and I do things while I’m riding this bike. And I do that for about 45 minutes while I’m sitting in a chair. And it just sort of gets my heart rate going, get little sweat worked up. And while I’m doing that, I’m on my phone and I go to my LinkedIn and I look at it and I do 20 more invites, because I do 20 invites to connections every single day, no matter what. Seven days a week, I look at all the connections that connected me yesterday, and I thank each one of them in a personal note, and I thank them for connecting to me. And I say, have your best day ever. And I make a mental note of the ones that come back and say thank you, because I know that I’ll be able to interact with those people as opposed to the other ones that just sort of blow it off. And I go through my other social media. I invest about 20 minutes reading the Bible. I have a structured system. I read the Bible every day. And then from that, I go back to my phone again and I type in the givers message for the day that we post on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and we post a message every single day. Never miss a day as a way as a part of a self improvement. So that a great way to give out. This is something to think about today and contrasting givers and takers. So I hit all the social media stuff while I’m on this bike, riding this bike thing. So within 45 minutes, usually, I have all of those things done. And then from there, I put the bike away, wash up a little bit more. Then from that point on, I’m into my emails and the day is off and running.

Nice. I think you alluded to something, and it’s the reason why I created a book club, because it’s like when I speak to individuals of your magnitude in this conversation, they always sneak in that one thing. In your case, it happened to be the Bible. But on your journey to currently, to get to where you are, I’m just going to be a three part question. What books did you receive or learn from your mentor or did you find on your own to get you to where you are? Second question would be like, what books are you reading right now? And the third part of that question is, what books have you written?

Excellent. Thank you. I would say the first would be, certainly that one is coming. The Bible is number one. And then I read it cover to cover every single year. Every year, cover to cover. All right. Because everything’s in there. And then the second book, I would say would be Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill that my father gave me, son. And I was about probably about 16 at the time. And he gave me this book. He says, I hope you read this. He said, it sat at my desk for about two years before I opened it up, and it’s really a good book. And then also I would say Dale Carnegie is how to win friends and influence people. I would say those are biggies. And from that there were psycho cybernetics. And I could go on to a number of other books from that, but I would say those are the three biggie’s. And then from that, then what was the second question? I remember the third one.

The second question was like, what books are you reading currently?

Right now? Currently, of course, still that one. Big ones there every day. And I actually follow a plan that absolutely says what to read. Usually you read two chapters from the Old Testament and about 20 verses from the New Testament. And I do that every day. You’ll go from Genesis all the way to Revelation all the way through, almost exact through the whole book. So I follow a structure and you’re right about being structured and I read that all the time. And actually another one that’s called The Secret of Traffic and it’s actually a book by Russell Brunson and it’s about traffic in the social networking kind of world and social world. And that’s the one I’m actually in the process of reading right now and it’s got some great insights. So those are the two. And then third question, of course, is the three books that I wrote actually ended up being four. First one is called the givers mindset. It’s not only a book itself, but also it has 1615 minutes audio lessons. So if someone just wanted to listen to key points of the book, commuting back and forth to work, each lesson is 15 minutes in length. So I have an audio version of the book in addition to the written book. Then the second book is called The Givers Lifestyle. That’s to identify the 30 habits of givers. What are the 30 habits that givers do every single day? You can see the habits they’ll do it over and over and the 30 habits of takers that we should be discerning that they do every day. What are those 30 habits? There’s actually 60, right? 30 33rd book is called the Givers lifelong learning. And there we talk about the virtual prisons that people walk around in that they carry with them. There are six virtual prisons and whenever someone looks at the list, they go, yeah, I’m in that one right there. These are virtual prisons that people carry around with them and we teach them how to get out of prison, how to get free, and our happiness level goes up. And the fourth critical question is to ask before we make decisions. And then from that I also wrote what’s called The Givers Codex, which is 180 givers codes to live by. And all those are through the website, et cetera. What we like to share with people is do our quiz and we have a great quiz that we like to share with them.

So this is going to I mean, I think this question will be I think you’re going to nail it. I already know you are. Just based upon the way you answer the questions earlier on this podcast, let’s say currently without age, no age restrictions. I’m a current taker right now. You as a giver, what words of insight would you give to me as a taker to influence me to give more than I’m currently taking?

I would do something that might be just a little bit unexpected that you’re going to love. I would say, you know what, I heard this great podcast and I really liked it. It’s by this guy, SA Grant. It’s called boss uncaged. It was really thought provoking and I talked about givers and stuff. I loved it. Listen to the podcast and give me your thoughts on it. That’s what I do. I would share your podcast with them. People listen to YouTube and podcasts all over the time they do. Anyway, podcasting is there, right? So I would use that as the opener because sometimes with takers, especially if it’s a family member, we get family members takers, right? It’s social, business, family. So how do you broach the subject? And you love them. You love them. You don’t want to hurt their feelings or have them feel bad or something. So I find using a third party, you know, sometimes it’s a great way to say and then maybe open their mind. And then after the podcast, after they listen to them say, well, what do you think of that? Well, you know what, you should do this seven question quiz because it’s got some great information on how to discern givers and takers. And what happens is through doing it essay by listening to your podcast. And that’s why I recommend every one of your listeners. They should share this the moment you post it and start sharing it with others because they’re the beneficiary of other people getting this information. Because they can begin to learn how to be more of a giver and less of a taker by sharing your podcast. So they do the seven question quiz. We give them a free assessment based on their answers. It’s only seven questions, but it’s how they discern and look at others. But there’s a self assessment part that’s sort of built in that’s very thoughtprovoking different assessments based on the answers. And after that, within minutes, they’re going to get the Six Arrows emailed to them, which they’re going to love. Then they’re going to get after that, a couple of days later, all 25 dues in the first book, the 25 dues, we invest in them right away and all they do is go to giversuniversity info, that’s all go to that URL, giversuniversity info. They’re actually on the first question when they go to that URL. And when I say five minutes or less, it’s five minutes or less and we’re going to load them up with some great things, compliments of your podcast. So that’s how they do it, share that information with them. And one of the things we teach is how to do a data. Reset, reset, declare and turn around. DAPA. We teach people how to do that because that’s how you move from temporary taker mode into fulltime giver mode.

Nice. So I think you kind of went to the next Segue. How can people get in contact with you on your social media platforms, your websites, and how do they get access to your free package?

Great. Thank you again. Just go to I was going to say www. Everyone says that, including me, right? Giversuniversity info. I-N-F-O. Givers is plural. Giversuniversity info, go there. They’re literally on the first question. It’s multiple choice. They always have three choices, seven questions. They’ll get a free assessment. It says how they’re doing on their assessment. The name of the quizzes, what is your givers and takers awareness IQ? That’s the name of the quiz. Seven questions. At the end of it, we’ll start giving them over the course of a few days and they’ll learn about it. We start developing the relationship and we do it by giving to them. Here’s the checklist. Look today at this checklist and see how many arrows you’re getting shot with. These arrows that you may not even realize because you didn’t know what the area looked like before. Look at this list, this checklist, this two page checklist. It’s a checklist of 25 dues on two pages. Look at these 25 deeds and identify that for a moment. If right now someone had itchy eyes or runny nose, I could surmise they probably have a cold. The symptoms, I’m not able to see the cold, but I can see the symptoms. Those are the deeds we teach people. Look at the symptoms of their life, look at their deeds and then you’ll know whether they’re in taker mode or giver mode based on labeling their deeds, not labeling the person. So it’s giversuniversity info, do the seven question quiz. You’re going to love it. You’re going to get a lot of benefit back and it’s all free. We want people to get this and then from that they learn about Givers University and who we are, learn about our social media, we’re on LinkedIn, etc. Our actual websites giversuniversity.com. But that info is the quiz. And we actually prefer they go there because they start benefiting and it opens their minds on how can they triple their happiness and how can they increase their productivity. Because when we have less takers in our life, our productivity as a person goes up well.

So that’s a bonus question for you. If you could spend 24 hours with anyone, dead or alive, uninterrupted for those 24 hours, who would it be and why?

Well, this one’s going to probably surprise a little bit. I think it would be Moses because I’d have to ask him, dude, what was it like bringing on those ten really bad deals? That had to be something. What was that like? And I would love to hear all about that.

In closing, I think this is definitely a solid episode. A lot of insight, a lot of information, a lot of actionable path that people can kind of go and execute. So at the end of my pocket, I usually get whoever I’m interviewing opportunity. And since you’ve been on the radio, you probably have a million questions, right? What questions would you have for me?

I would ask, what new and exciting ways are you looking into to get your great message out to others? Because you need to do it. So how are you doing that? What are the new ways you’re looking at?

So right now I’m working on three different variables to expand and grow the Boston Cage brand. One of them is I was just going to do courses and I said, courses are not going to be enough. So I’m creating a Boston Cage academy. That’s the first thing that I’m doing. Second, to support that is the Boston Cage app that pulls all the tentacles of Boston Cage, including the academy, into one central source. So it allows us to track and to communicate. And then the third thing that I’m getting ready to release in the next 15 to 30 days is the Boston Cage journals that allow podcasters, book readers interviewers, interviewees to have a central source of a guided journal so they can capture the information as they’re learning on their journeys.

Awesome. Great. Thank you. That’s awesome. More people need to hear what you’re doing, man. You’re doing a great thing.

Yeah, I definitely appreciate it. Well, I mean, that brings us to conclusion and I definitely want to appreciate that. It’s kind of one of those sad things. Like as I’m a host and I’m hosting these particular episodes and I’m listening, and a lot of times I was like, I wish.

There’S a clean.

I was just in the audience listening, because as I’m listening to it is live. But it’s completely different when you’re listening as an audience, listening to this insightful information. You could rewind it and take notes and then recap it and then take action on it versus just being a host. So I definitely commend your messaging. I definitely want to receive more of you giving right. And obviously take that and give more to my audience as well. So I appreciate your time, I appreciate your efforts, and thanks for being on show today.

Thank you. It’s my honor being on your show. Essay thank you.

Essay grant over and out. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Boss on Cage. I hope you got some helpful insight and clarity to the diverse approach on your journey to becoming an engaged. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review and share the podcast. If this podcast has helped you or you have any additional questions, reach out and let me know. Email me at ask@sagrant.com or drop me your thoughts via call or text at 76223 three boss. That’s 762-233-2677.

I.

Would love to hear from you. Remember, to become a Boston Cage, you have to release your inner beast. SA Grant signing off.

Listeners of Boss Uncaged are invited to download a free copy of our host S.A Grant on site for ebook become an Uncaged Trailblazer. Learn how to release your primal success in 15 minutes a day. Download now at www.bossuncaged.com./freebook.