Episode 8 - The Entrepreneurship Mindset: Coach Bert Robinson’s Blueprint for Building Successful Founders

Speaker A: Today's guest has spent decades shaping leaders, building entrepreneurs, and helping people turn raw ideas into real businesses. He's a Kauffman fast track facilitator, the founder of the Entrepreneur Competency center, and a true servant leader in the Dallas startup ecosystem. If you're an entrepreneur or want to think like one, this episode with coach Burt Robinson is mandatory listening. Episode 8 of the Build you'd Empire podcast.

Speaker B: Coming up in in one minute.

Speaker A: Welcome, Empire builders. You're listening to the Build you'd Empire podcast, the show where ambitious minds gather to learn, grow and create. Here we dive into the stories of entrepreneurs, athletes, leaders and innovators who are shaping the world around us. Together, we'll unpack the strategies, triumphs and challenges that come with building something mean, meaningful, empowering you to keep pushing towards your vision. So let's get inspired, let's get motivated, and let's build our empires brick by brick, step by step. Uh, welcome to the Build you'd Empire podcast. Welcome back to the Build you'd Empire podcast. Today we're sitting down with someone who has quietly shaped the entrepreneurial landscape in Dallas Fort Worth for years, Coach Burt Robinson. Burt is the principal owner of the Entrepreneur Competency Center, a longtime leader in the Kauffman fast track program, and one of the most seasoned leadership coaches you'll meet. His career spans high impact roles at Xerox, txu, the insurance industry, and decades spent training leaders at every level. But what makes Burt special isn't just his experience. It's the mission that drives him. Building entrepreneurs, elevating financial literacy, and strengthening communities. He's helped startups refine their ideas, build leadership capability, develop real financial models, and push through the gauntlet that kills 95% of early stage companies. And he does it all through servant leadership, giving back, guiding, and helping others grow. In this episode, Bert breaks down what real entrepreneurship looks like, the mindset behind success, why so many businesses fail, and what it takes to thrive. In today's world, this one is packed with wisdom. Let's jump in. Coach Burt, how are you today?

Speaker B: Thank you for joining the Build you'd Empire podcast.

Speaker A: How are you?

Speaker C: Hi, Nick. Good seeing you, my friend. It's a beautiful, uh, day here in Dallas. I'm actually at my office in Frisco today, so it's a great day to be seen.

Speaker B: Well, thank you for joining us. I'm looking forward to our discussion and learning a little bit about, uh, your background and potentially, um, I think there's lots of opportunity for you to help others in the Entrepreneurship world. And that's why we want you on here. And I think you've got a phenomenal story. Um, so with that being said, um, you know, for those who are listening, they don't know your story. Could you kind of take it back to the beginning, you know, where you started your journey and we can kind of work our way into the entrepreneurship stuff.

Speaker C: Well, I'm not going to go back that for you. You know, they tell you don't to put everything that's on your resume because it becomes very, very long. So I'm going to shorten this and go to where I'm at today and I'll tell you why I'm at where I'm at today. My three pillars, Nick, uh, that I think we discussed is entrepreneurship, financial literacy and community building. Now I'll say this, that I've gotten into each of those at different ports and times of my career. My journey and my journey started a long, long time ago. And my first, uh, encounter in business at the college was financial literacy or insurance, you know. And I found out that was a tremendous opportunity and how important that is to the whole foundation of our country. I learned a lot about banking and insurance, uh, through that first experience. So that experience, the first job opportunity I had uh, with Allstate long, long time ago, led to me having a job opportunity with the Xerox Corporation, I think it was called Xerox Data Systems at the time. And they were looking and recruiting people from offices and they would off, they would come in and say, hey, Xerox. And during this time it's, it's not that over company, but it was uh, a powerhouse in technology. It was a powerhouse in technology. So after doing my research and what they offered was coming into their XDS financial operations division. And I got that experience and it built on the insurance experience. So now long, long ago, from those times, I'm still in financial, the financial business, financial education, financial literacy, insurance, etc. Etc.

Speaker B: Etc.

Speaker C: You know. And so I continue to learn, I uh, continue to grow in that area of my competencies because I like it, I loved it, I was passionate about it. And so uh, that brought me there. And then I mentioned being with Xerox, that gave me another part because all the pillars I have and everything that we do is based on a, some type of foundation or structure. And that infrastructure probably is driven by technology today. And so I don't care if you're a small business or the enterprise business, which I really used to serve, it needs that technology. And so that takes me to, uh, not that long ago, but when I retired from the corporate environment, I'm like, what am I going to do with myself? I've had all these opportunities to be in leadership. I've had all these type opportunities to manage. I've been in these sectors. And so I started to be an entrepreneur. And there is a big distinction between being an enterprise or corporate manager or leader than it is for an entrepreneurship. Yes, they all have some common nature. And I tell this story to a lot of the people. Uh, during my time, I met the great entrepreneurs in technology of the day. I met Michael Dale, I met Steve Jobs. I knew who Bill Gates was. This is during my era. Okay? Actually Google and Amazon came after them as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker B: Uh, right.

Speaker C: They weren't really present in the 80s, but those two, three companies were present in the 80s. And so again, that gives you a little bit of background. And I decided to dedicate my life after we're going to use the word retirement of what I was going to do to help other people. And that gets us into the third pillar, which is community building and being able to be a servant leader. So I started a small company, I think it was 2004, called Coach's Class. Class stands for communication, Leadership, Action, Success and Service. I do everything about acronyms and I hate to tell old Xerox stories, but we had the biggest. We had a book of acronyms. We had more acronyms than any other company. The only one that had more acronyms was the irs. So, uh, the, uh, the love that I have for business, entrepreneurship and then helping other people, uh, led me to start this company. And we partnered and collaborated with some great organizations in the entrepreneur space. One of the companies is the Kauffman Foundation. You can go out and look at it. Www.kauffman.org it is the largest think tank on entrepreneurship. And I'm going to say the country, I don't know about the world, but they do a lot of things in this country to promote entrepreneurship. Give you an example. During the time I was talking about starting Coaches class, which I'd already done, uh, I got a book in the mail and it was called Thought Leadership. And in that book I found where the CEO of Coffin at the time, Carl Stram, had wrote a book called the Entrepreneurial Entrepreneurial Imperative. It's a powerful book. Believe the date, time frame is 2003 when he wrote that. Uh, but it is a powerful book and it talks about why it is an imperative for entrepreneurs to be built or more entrepreneurs be present in our system. When I say our system is that um, you know we, we, we create and create jobs. And going back to my earlier reference, when Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and others started their thing, they were entrepreneur, they were small. Now they're the enterprise. And so one of the uh, aspects and why I teamed up with Coffin, they have a comprehensive program to teach that in conjunction with other universities. But the main, I uh, think the main thing is you know they work very closely with Harvard University School of Business. And so uh, that's my three pillars. Okay. And I am loving what I'm doing in the community.

Speaker B: So what does entrepreneurship mean to you personally?

Speaker C: Uh, well, it means this, it means two things. Uh, the second word in class or acronym is leadership. And when we say leadership and entrepreneurship we're talking about self starters being creative and offering something that doesn't necessarily have to be disruptive. It doesn't necessarily have to be um, a replica of anything else. But you have put your, I'm going to use the word spend situation, problem, implication, needs payoff of what it's going to do or what impact it's going to have and uh, follow through with that plan. And you know again I can get into some of the teaching that we do for entrepreneurial mindset which is heavyweight. Entrepreneurs don't think like corporate people. They don't think like people that have jobs. They can't. And so uh, m. My love is being able to teach entrepreneurship so that we can see more entrepreneurs become the Bill Gates and the Steve Jobs. And if you don't get to that level, one of the things and one of the goals that you should have as an entrepreneur is to employ other people. That changes from just a sole proprietor or solopreneur to actually having an impact on economy. And so that's, that's the thrust there. Uh, some of my other affiliations with that is with training and development organizations like trainingdevelopment.org td.org association of Training Development, all the courses and curriculum that are offered. And I'm going to say for adults, I'm going to say for entrepreneurs to sharpen their skills, to make their skills better. And so in the teaching environment that we are, uh, we use this is called the future is now and we teach a certain way for adults. And for my entrepreneur friends that have taken my classes, etc. I understand that they're adult learners number one. And then they have very, very adult like lives and learning is different. And so uh, I think I'm Pretty good at working with adults to teach.

Speaker B: So you, you've led startups, you've trained a lot of people, you've worked in the corporate world, you've obviously been involved with your own startups and other people. Uh, and obviously your experience with, with Xerox. Uh, what, uh, what are the common threads or patterns you see for successful entrepreneurs?

Speaker C: Well, uh, again I'll go back to leadership. Uh, number one, you know, being able to guide a team, the organization with leadership. Another one is uh, in my acronym it says action. And I'm going to determine that. You know, a lot of us go out and we are got what tactical. But I'm talking about strategic thinking. I'm talking about setting the goals and plans, both short and long term, that are strategic. The tactical actions are going to happen if you have a strategic plan that's a port short of getting to the next steps that you want to go to to meet your plan. So I think those are two elements. Another element that I think is critical because it really leads to one of the high rates, uh, of failure and I hate to use it that way, I wish I could say high rates of success in entrepreneurship. But the high rate of failure leads back to number one. It's either two, the two most common elements of failures of businesses. And I'm going to ask you a question, Nick, not to put you on the spot, but what is the percentage of businesses that failed in the first one to five years?

Speaker B: 50%.

Speaker C: 95. Wow. And so one of the elements and the rate of failure is normally these two commonalities. Number one is the lack of capital or resources. People get tired of bootstrapping but they can't get the capital to support their ideas and their, their, their dreams or their company. Number two is what we talked about, leadership and management. Leadership and management tie into. So one of the reasons, and tying that back, one of the reasons, venture capitalists and angel investors, banks, you know when they're analyzing the business plan and they look at the numbers and the numbers make good. One of the questions that is always asked, do we believe in that management team or that leadership? So it comes down to those two elements. I've seen very, very good ideas, disruptors, innovative change, but the were not able to get the resources they needed. Sometimes it's people, resources, they, they hire someone that really could help them and fulfill one of those roles that uh, an entrepreneur or founder feels and take some of that workload off, uh, with maybe better subject matter, expert skill. And what happens is that they don't lead or know how to manage the onboarding process. I don't care if it's just contract or fractional, they can't do that. And people see the leadership as failing. So they get out and they don't want to work anymore with that organization. Okay. That's just one element. So, uh, uh, we had the opportunity to have a venture capitalist panel at a One million Cups event. And after everything was done, we had panelists, we had VCs there, we had uh, organizations that support entrepreneurship in Dallas Fort Worth. And the last questions that were asked is what are the most important things between capital and leadership and management? And to a person, all the panelists said leadership. And so you know what uh, we do at Coach's class and the ecc, the Entrepreneurial Competency center, we try to build leaders to that professional level that they have a better, more in depth understanding of what their role really is. And uh, it takes uh, what we call professional capability or professional development capability, acquisition. And again, I'm going to throw one out that most of the entrepreneurs I run into, because they're small, they don't think they have to worry about compliance. So we kind of focus with our, uh, entrepreneurs on those three aspects. Professional development, capability acquisition and compliance.

Speaker A: You're listening to the Build you'd Empire podcast. We'll be right back after this short break. This week's stoic quote is brought to you by Zar Clothing, the most sustainable athleisure wear for men and women. Build your empire with style and purpose. Build your empire with ZAR clothing. Visit zarclothing.com and use the code CZAR25 for 15% off your cart. And now, today's stoic quote. First say to yourself what you would be and then do what you have to do. Epictetus. This quote mirrors Bert Robinson's entire approach to entrepreneurship and founder development. Burt doesn't start with tactics. He starts with identity. Before building companies, programs or revenue, he challenges entrepreneurs to decide who they are choosing to become. His work through Coach's class, the Entrepreneur Competency center and the Ice House curriculum consists of consistently reinforces one truth. Success follows clarity of self, not motivation or luck. Bert teaches founders that entrepreneurship is a deliberate choice, not a title. Once that choice is made, the work becomes unavoidable. Learning financial literacy, building discipline, developing resilience, and executing despite uncertainty. This stoic principle reflects his message perfectly. Define the founder you intend to be, then align every action to that decision. No excuses, no shortcuts, just commitment, consistency and ownership. The exact mindset required to build something that lasts.

Speaker C: I hope I answered the question. Sure, yeah.

Speaker A: Um, yeah.

Speaker B: And you've given us some background on the Entrepreneur Competence Competency center and I guess how you help businesses and you've been involved in, with, with Kauffman Fast Track. Can you, and you teach a great course. Can you tell us what are some of the most transformational results that maybe you've seen from that program?

Speaker C: Yeah, I had a go probably uh, pre pandemic, uh, to identify work with five or six small startup businesses. And again, one of the things I liked about the uh, Xerox Corporation, the Kauffman foundation, association training, development and others, they were very diversity equity inclusive. Because if we look at the statistics of entrepreneurship and those ones that we were talking about, solo entrepreneurs and all that, you'll find that women own businesses. There's only about 3% of them that produce a billion dollars worth of revenue. That number needs to change. And so one of my things were, was to offer that assistance. And so you know, I was able to contact and work with through 1 million cups and through the ECC and just the efforts of the people I know, uh, to find uh, very, very nice opportunities that I have been working with and develop, helped develop. And uh, again I, I'm talking to the audience here. I have not seen any fast results for entrepreneurs. You know, we, we have that one to five was the scenario of how many businesses fail. But I call it zero to six years because I still have projects that I know great master business people started and they're just now fifth or six years getting to where they've got the minimum viable product out. And so I, I'm challenged a lot, uh, in the space with you know, these great ideas. And most of the time people want what they want to pay, they want to be paid now they want the money. Now they need the income or whatever their needs are, uh, to fruition, to flourish. And uh, one of the things that the challenge is to try to slow that process down so that we can get very granular and we can really get everything refined. And I think you understand the Kauffman uh, fast Track program starts with ideation, positioning, commit, refine and launch. And again, not a challenge, but when you come into that, this space that I'm in and it's education, you know, I'm going to be able to assess where somebody really is on what we teach. And sometimes we have the, what the court before the horse. And I'll run into that and hopefully uh, I'm Able to uh, make a difference and make some changes because we can always go back and change and refine uh, those plans. So right now, uh, to get back, possibly to answer your question, I'm very excited about having five to six companies that I have worked with over the years ready to launch, relaunch and get their um, get their sea legs, I'll call it. Okay, right.

Speaker B: What, um, you mentioned leadership. Obviously that's important. But what role is mindset play and self belief play in entrepreneurship? Because it's as you know, it's a cold, dark, lonely world in the entrepreneurship world. Right. And you have to be, sometimes have to be kind of mentally tough and determined. So how do you feel that that mindset plays that role plays in entrepreneurship?

Speaker C: Well, you won't believe this but uh, there's uh, a process for entrepreneurial thinking and we teach a course called the Ice House entrepreneurial Course and it teaches eight lessons. And those eight lessons are you have

Speaker B: four

Speaker C: core concepts or concepts that we call the power to choose. By uh, the way I'm going to say this, these are not only entrepreneurial lessons, these are life lessons. We have the power to choose. The next one for an entrepreneur is very important. Recognize an opportunity and a very important one that has again attachment to my acronym class of action. Well, we say put ideas into action and so going back to the failure rate that one of the reasons why it's so high, we have a lot of people with a lot of good concepts and boy it looks good on paper. But they fail to put ideas into action or to execute, gain traction. All those keywords, I guess in the final piece of the core concepts, we call it pursuit of knowledge. And I tie that into something else. I've been coaching a long time. I've been coaching over 25 years, maybe even longer if I wanted to. When they changed the acronym from managing to coaching in the corporate, I got that training too. You know, that's been over 25 years ago, but I've been coaching a long time and if we were to step back and look at the opportunities to increase our skill set and everybody said I'm a lifelong learner. So the pursuit of knowledge, if you don't know what you don't know, how are you going to do it? Right. I tell leaders that sometimes our entrepreneur leaders is that, well, I want to get, hire somebody to do that. Yeah, you can. And so my next question is, if you don't know what they're doing, how are you going to manage them? So the pursuit of knowledge is the key. So moving on to the eight concepts, we have four advanced concepts. That is number one, building wealth. Building wealth can translate over into what we do with the, uh, fast track in terms of financial modeling. You know, setting the right goals, creating the right timeline for revenues, et cetera. Uh, so building wealth. Then the next one is building community. Here's one that normally jumps ahead of all those, because it is critical is the next concept is building brand. So there's three. And I normally test. This is a test question, but I'll answer it. The last concept, which is the most important, and I've seen it hundreds of times during 1,000,000 cups presentations. It's perseverance again, tying back to the failure rate.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: People come shooting out the blocks. Ready, set, go. They're off and running. And they encounter all kind of inhibitors, barriers, disappointments, rejection, and guess what? They quit. Perseverance is the number one thing that keeps us going, keeps us up at night. And you have to break through that barrier or those inhibitors for success.

Speaker B: And there's a lot of ideas that may not have ever happened. And I, I think about FedEx. Fred Smith.

Speaker C: Y.

Speaker B: He wrote that paper in college about FedEx. Mhm. And his instructor gave him a C and said, well, why would anyone ever want to send anything overnight? We've got a fax machine here. It's remarkable he got a C on that. So, I mean, for the, I think the audience, it's just remarkable that you do have to have perseverance because you're going to get lots of nos and you have to be willing just to pick up and move to the next and keep moving the ball.

Speaker C: Well, the new, the new term, and I'm around again, a lot of you young geniuses, if I can call you young, uh, is pivot. You have to be able to pivot.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: You know, you have to be able to pivot. Um, and, uh, I was, I heard a podcast this morning and was, uh, talking some very heavy people and disruptor technologies. And these people are billionaires. Right. Uh, and they, their thing was, you know, you have to be able to think like a master chess player. 15 moves ahead.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: And you have to be able to predict what your competition is going to do. That whole SWAT thing. Right, right. You got to be able to stay ahead of that. And, uh, perseverance is the only way you get through that. I'll just simplify it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Because it's going to be some challenges. You think you got it going on and then this happens and whoa, we got to Pivot. We got to overcome an obstacle that we didn't even know was there. And so you have to be resilient. And uh, that'll get into some of the other conversations. We won't have all day to talk uh, about uh, strategic planning and what that really looks like for an entrepreneur. We won't be able to do that today, but it goes into what I call the life cycle of an entrepreneur or a uh, startup. Okay.

Speaker B: And I know a big component of your class is the financial aspect and you emphasize the financial literacy, which I found out the last couple of months, how important it is and how important it is to be organized, particularly in front of a venture capitalist or an angel investor. Um, why is it often overlooked or why is it kind of under taught often in entrepreneurship?

Speaker C: Well, I think you might be a great person, uh, because I think I looked at your background and I think you have a degree in entrepreneurship.

Speaker B: I do.

Speaker C: And uh, you know, very few people have a degree in entrepreneurship, Nick. And uh, I think that uh, you know, when you get to that class, either undergraduate or graduate level, there's a piece of that that's called entrepreneurial finance.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker C: So in the entrepreneur space you're going to find two kind of people, creative and creative. Normally those creative people are not the best people in math or finance. They just aren't. It's not one of those things that drives them. Sometimes I'll have entrepreneurs say I don't care about the money so they don't again get into something um, that things. And I think you and I have had the conversation about uh, the criticality of being able to run a business is being able to run a, and manage a P and L a profit and loss statement and understanding what those means, you know, what, what those documents of the income statement, the cash flow statement, uh, and mean to your company. And uh, uh, I think it's a really difficult time for an entrepreneur when uh, they see the areas are growing in revenue. Okay. They're doing what they say they're gonna do in revenue. They're getting the 20, 30% growth but under the other cog session and other things, they're not as profitable as they could be. And so understanding how to make those decisions, when to make those decisions and why you're making those decisions, I think are, are critical. So you have to know, you have to know those triggers. Right. You have to know. And it's not accounting. People get it so confused when we start talking about spreadsheet that it's accounting, it's Hopkins Out. It's not accounting, it's leadership. You know, and uh, uh again managing the P and L, you may have a whole staff at an enterprise that, that's all they do is do the accountant, the books and everything, manage the dashboard. But you're going to be the person that has to make the decisions. Critical decision because it may be affecting your overall strategic plan or you may be able to, to cut out, I hate to call it fat, but cut out some expenses but uh, in order to bring greater value and I call it value, you say profits, that's one thing, but value might be another thing because keeping uh, your customers happy uh, to me is probably more important than looking at the shares. Now that's just me.

Speaker B: Would you say the most important financial lessons or what would you say are the most important financial lessons?

Speaker C: The P and L, Uh, for what we teach. Yeah, you teach your brokers most important lessons are the P and L. Okay. Understanding how to manage the profit and loss of your company in the financial area.

Speaker B: For someone just starting out, um, you know, what should they understand first? The revenue, the cost, investment planning, all the above.

Speaker C: Well by that that goes way. Yeah, all of the above is the correct answer. But you know when you're ideating an idea, you know you have to go through that process. But you know we teach a little bit different because you know I have a whole matrix, you want to call it that, uh, workflow of the yeses and nos and decisions points for startup entrepreneurs, early phase, growth phase and then when you get into the rapid phase of growth, those all have different decision tree things that a uh, CEO, founder and most of us don't look at ourselves that way. We say it but we don't look at ourselves that way. You know some of us have just done what we said before because we're solo. We just created a job for ourselves and we don't look at it the same. And uh, I'm, I'm challenging and I would sell to your audience uh, to take it to the next level. I think Napoleon Hill, you know who Napoleon Hill is.

Speaker B: I do think, I don't know what

Speaker C: kind of audience uh, we're, we're, we're going to connect with today. But uh, Napoleon Hill made the statements is that he's already figured out once he's ideated something each step, even if he has to be in a uh, role playing mode with all his own people that he's created, they don't have to be real people and plays it out. Plays it out. I guess you can call it role playing, you know, and uh, he does that, that works for us that are by ourselves most of the time and don't have that mastermind or think tank. That's why people like yourself and me, we go and we, we look at a lot of information. We're trying to find gold nuggets wherever we can that's going to help us. So that's another thing I would say that's important for an entrepreneur. We call it. You ask the question what should do first? Well, pursuit of knowledge is number one. And there are several ways to do that as an adult. There's social and both of these are inferral. So there's social way of doing it and then there's the formal way of getting that information. And uh, I believe that that's really because of the Internet and just the, the explosion of information out there and the growth of entrepreneurship. You know, uh, I know that the uh, pandemic accelerated technology, but it also has um, accelerate the number of people that want to get into entrepreneurship, have a vision of doing something else. And yeah, it has something to do. The job market was heavily affected by that. Okay, so definitely. Mhm.

Speaker B: Can you share a common mistake that you've seen people make specifically? Like a financial blind spot that's really held people back?

Speaker C: Well, I have a whole list of uh, common mistakes entrepreneurs make.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker C: But you said financial and so I'm going to keep it to the financials. I think most of us run based on the revenue what we can generate from our products and services. And what I don't think most entrepreneurs do well is they work on a uh, minimum viable product and make that the best that they can before they come up with. And one of your businesses, which is apparel, right? Zara Clothing, there's hundreds of SKUs and it's hard to identify what the minimum viable product could do. And what I suggest that, you know, whether it's a mistake that we make is that we don't spend enough time on our minimum viable product.

Speaker B: Product.

Speaker C: In the technology world, and your tech guy too, we say we didn't beta test it. In the uh, strategizer world, we say we didn't test our hypotheses and we go running and maybe we're spending the money in the wrong place on the wrong product. We're maybe spending lots of money because anytime you take a product and put it out there on the street, you got all the aspects of a wholesale the market, the sales, the marketing, the admin, the post sale, the customer Service. And so my, My. My challenge is, or, uh, what I would say a, uh, challenge is for most small entrepreneurs. We don't. We don't get granular with that. MVP makes sense.

Speaker B: It does. Thank you for your insight. This is helpful. I think this will be helpful for the audience. I know you've led one million Cups Plano. That's where we met. Um, I know you've volunteered with Easter Seals, and you've been involved with a number of Catholic charities, and you've given back a lot right in your life. Um, so what's your philosophy around giving back?

Speaker C: Well, we talked about, uh, the last S on my acronym of class, and it's all about service, servant leadership. You know, I've been blessed to be in some high places, opportunities, you know, and, uh, uh, giving back. And we talked about that pillar I call community building. And so if I can't find the time to volunteer and, you know, there's a lot of ways to do it. A lot of people say they retire. I don't really find retirement attractive. Okay. I want to be doing something because I am that lifelong learner. And so, uh, uh, but, you know, we. We can find tons of organizations that work with chambers, work with the sba, that they have volunteer opportunities. So I recommend to anybody like myself in my age group, go and find something to volunteer. All you're really doing is adding value to the community. And our community is ran on us, uh, collectively, not individually. And so I spend my time looking for, I'm, uh, going to call them advocacies that I can put into. And so under community building for me is we have 1 million cups, we have Young Entrepreneurs Academy, we have partnerships with isds, and we try to touch middle school to high school students with financial literacy and just some of the basic things, because those things are not being taught. So I think those are valuable and it really helps the community.

Speaker B: Uh, what changes have you seen in Dallas Fort Worth and the entrepreneurial community in the last 10 years? I know you mentioned Covid. That's been, I guess, a big pivot point.

Speaker C: Well, I think, uh, you know, one things I do like about, um, uh, Kaufman, One man Cups of surgery. We. We tell people we're not a networking organization. We tell people we are a community builder and we're an education organization. And so what I've seen is an explosion of opportunities for people to come learn about, uh, entrepreneurship. And I see more and more about the education side than the raw business side of Let me show you how to make a million Dollars. Okay.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Let's go out and learn how to make a million dollars versus let's make a million dollars. Okay.

Speaker B: Did that explosive the start five years ago during COVID you said that there's a lot of growth.

Speaker C: Well, because of the acceleration of technology. Again, remember I started that whole thing. Everything's built on that platform. So it gives us many, many more opportun opportunities. Uh, who was it? Uh, golly, I was in Cleveland. I'll never forget hearing George Bush senior say we are a global world and we're talking about a global economy. That was late 80s. And uh, here it is. And Carl Stram talked about it in his book, and I'll say it again, the Entrepreneurial Imperative. I recommend anybody to read that book if you are interested in entrepreneurship. Okay. And it is coming from the premier, to me, think tank of entrepreneurship in this country. And so, uh, but again, because of COVID the platform that we're on right now, which is one of the best studios, uh, out there that you, you use, and I was glad you use this, uh, uh, gives everybody an opportunity to get that information now. And me being a tech guy from a information company, a communications company, because that's what Xerox was, you know, uh, I can see the information flowing faster, data is traveling faster. We're able to take that data with AI and turn it into information. So everything is just sped up so much since the pandemic. And entrepreneurship is no different because of all the opportunities that the technology platform allows us to do. Yeah, I have some clients, and not off the subject, I hope. Uh, but they were in mobility before the pandemic. They were already making mobile apps and all that. Boy, that has blown up. So everybody's got a mobile app now.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker C: And so that kind of thing I've seen. All right.

Speaker B: And along the lines with technology, with ChatGPT, I think it's, it's a phenomenal resource. I mean from strategy, graphics, I mean, just how to do things. I mean I find it very useful just to be able to bounce ideas and uh, collaborate right. With, with ChatGPT. And I think that's going to accelerate, um, hopefully success really in giving people answers and putting things together quickly. Or, you know, it might take you three or four weeks to put together a report on marketing. And it takes chatgpt about 20 seconds.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's, it's phenomenal. Yeah, I never in. I'm, um, old school. Heard of AI. In the 80s we called it machine learning. Now we got deep machine learning and deep machine learning. You know, as a science again, ties to data and something program just turned into information. So I won't say how many years of business experience I got. It's a lot. And I can tell you AI has taken a compilation of people like me and all people out there on subject and they've been able to what we used to call, create a repository of data information that is so easy to access now. And we've got the tool called AI that can Chat gtt, what is uh, Google calls, there's Gemini and man, I'm like, I'm just amazed. Being a technologist myself, I could never imagine what I saw in the 80s at some labs was going to be there. And it makes us smarter right now the risk and I had the conversation yesterday about the risk is that because the machine is doing the work, we're not getting smarter because we're not really pursuing the knowledge down. Because I've seen people that have no experience in something, they ask Chat GP to write it for them. And if you go through, let's say the narrative or the story, you know, if you ask any second level questions, they really don't have a idea what they're talking about. So that's a risk.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And uh, you know the scientists that created uh, AI and you know that was out in Dartmouth College and uh, that whole area in the northeast that had those think tanks that were working technology and the ones on the west coast as well. But you know there's some of the inherent things and problems that they saw back then are still existed today with AI, uh, because it is a machine and man has to program the machine. And so that's, that's that.

Speaker B: So let's pivot a little to leadership and legacy. You've, you've worked for some big companies, obviously Xerox, txu, Energy, Insurance. And how did the corporate life shape your leadership style,

Speaker C: training and development? Uh, I can go real deep into it, but I'll give you the easy, uh, answer. Companies during an era that was investing in their human capital, Xerox was one of the best in their era. And I was able to uh, seize that opportunity, given that opportunity. So I've had some of the best training in the world for my era, okay. And so uh, that, that really shaped my career, especially in leadership. If you're going to lead people, I don't care what, what it is, you have to have role models, you have to have some competencies. And I've seen the success and failure of us, uh, having a gut feel, especially in the sales arena, because the guy's a great salesman, let's make him the sales manager. That might not be the best role for those people. Right. And so, uh, I, I subscribe to what the mindset. Subscribe to because again, it works in entrepreneurship, but it works in everything we really do. If you think about the eight concepts of mindset, I said pursuit of knowledge. Normally we're taught, oh, once I got the parchment on my wall, I'm done. I'm done with learning. Or it creates this. I know everything about everything. And now we have AI so they think they don't have to know anything because AI knows it, so why should they know it? And I'm just subscribing to us, getting some old fashioned boots on the ground, training, development and learning, reading and getting a basic foundation so that you can build on a strong foundation without any impurities in your facts or thoughts.

Speaker B: You find the most successful people are people that have that hunger to continually learn. Right. And then there's a lot of tools today. Masterclass and headway and number of tools to help you continue to learn. And I think that's where you said, you know, you're not going to retire. Probably me neither. Um, but I think that's where a lot of people just stop. Right. They stop the learning and that's where you start falling behind. Right. Especially when we're talking about technology and AI that's moving at warp speed.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You have to be able to adapt and understand how to leverage those things because your competitor is. And if you don't adapt and leverage those things, you're going to be left in the dust.

Speaker C: Right? Well, uh, that's exactly what I think, but we won't have enough time to cover it on your podcast today. But we were getting into an area of neuroscience that, uh, I think has to be addressed in some kind of way because, you know, I'm a technology technology guy as well, but I didn't mention that as one of my pillars. But it is the platform and infrastructure, everything we do.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker C: And it is not something that is grass is easy. You have to go and learn it and you have to learn it from a standpoint of how it was built, why it was built, and uh, what direction is going to do. Because what technology is what really changes man's technology has always been what has changed. I don't care. We're talking about the hammer to the automobile, to the airplane. And uh, you know, technology is probably the biggest disruptor that we have in our lives because things change and they change per generation. And so for someone like me, in order for my longevity, sustainability, I have to continue to learn. And so I may learn different than others. You know, we talk about this social reference of learning is just going off the chain today. And we teach. That's a good learning tool. But you have to be able to assess, absorb, apply those capabilities. I don't care if it's formal or informal. You have to be able to assess, absorb, apply.

Speaker B: What's your perspective on servant leadership and how's that evolved in your journey?

Speaker C: Well, I remember, uh, that term coming out, uh, won't even get into when I first heard the term and got involved with, uh, people. And it's probably more from a religious, uh, standpoint when I first heard of that term. Okay. And, you know, now it's crept over into the business side. And I saw that, uh, at the advent of, when we really got into social media, I knew a number of people right here in Dallas, you know, uh, you know, they were talking servant leadership, they were talking those terms. What it really means to me though is, uh, being a person that can follow as well as lead. And, uh, we talked about the community involvement, opportunity to volunteer and to give back and stuff. But, you know, the, the whole thing about servant leadership is where you stand, what you role model, what you represent. And uh, uh, again, I, I said advocacies, what you advocate, you know, who your affinity groups are, you know, and, uh, you know, we all have different affinity groups like churches, sororities, fraternities, uh, business associations and all that. And so what I do is really choose wisely. I have the power to choose those. And so that's it for those listening

Speaker B: who are over 40 and thinking, hey, it's too late for me to build something. What would you say to those people?

Speaker C: It's never too late, never too late to build. It's never too late to start. All, uh, you have to do is have the desire to do something and gain your energy resources from your passion, which is within.

Speaker B: Some of the best companies are built from people that are over 40. And reason being leading back to all the things that we had said earlier is the learning and the knowledge, all the things that you've learned. Because when you're, you know, 20, 25, you still kind of fresh in the world. When you're 40, you've had some experience in the real world to see how. Right. And probably some failures, which oftentimes motivates and teaches because I think you learn a lot more from failure than you do from Success.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Um, and I think when you get to 40, you have a lot of that knowledge that you don't have when you're 25. And I think you have much better chance and odds. Granted it's a 95% failure, but I think you have better opportunity because you've got knowledge and, or you know how to get knowledge. If you don't have something, if you know you need to be somewhere but you don't know how to get there, you can find that knowledge and you know how to at least go and retrieve it or learn it.

Speaker C: Um, so we, we, we are talking the same common language. Uh, one of the great books I read, um, I'm not going to promote names, um, necessary. But a book called Falling Forward, Failing Forward, excuse me, Failing Forward was written and again I'm, I'm pursuing knowledge. So I'm reading all the leadership books I can from leadership gurus and masterminds and I think uh, that was uh, John Maxwell that wrote that. It came back to me. So I'll give John a shout out on your platform. Felling Forward.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker C: Great book.

Speaker B: Okay. I might have to look that look for that. I think back, um, there was a commercial, I don't know, maybe probably 20 years ago with Michael Jordan Nike commercial. And he talked about missing shots, the cost of playoff games, championships, things like that. And at the end he says I succeed because I continue to fail. Michael Jordan, Hm. That's one of the, that's probably the best sports commercial in my opinion, ever.

Speaker C: Yeah. I'm telling you, there is so much truth in that. It, you know, we can go around and say, oh, failure is the best teacher. Uh, but to me if you don't fail, you never tried.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And so what I look at and what I measure and uh, this is from my old HR days, uh, is we talked about the experiential grid you had mentioned before. You know, companies can get a lot of value by getting people over 40 to come work for them because they have experience. Yeah. You can get the young whiz kid, the college, uh, graduate from the

Speaker A: Ivy,

Speaker C: um, League schools or wherever, you know, and bring them in and maybe it doesn't cost you as much. Right. However, what you're giving up is that experiential grid. The experiential grid is all the things and they're like to me, building blocks.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And those building blocks are going to enable, not inhibit. Because if you have the building block, you do have success and failure in each of those. That's how we actually learned Success and failure, repetitive. And the science of it is just amazing. Uh, go check out something called Psycho Cybernetics, uh, look up a guy that named Matt Fury. So I'm giving a lot of people that I tend to as a shout out because we should be, we shouldn't keep any secrets. We should be sharing successful things that we can connect with. Without me trying to sell you a book. Right. That's another explosion. I, uh, was with Xerox when we came in with Just in Time Printing because we had the digital capabilities to do high speed printing and we could take it off a lithography process and put it on a reprographic or digital process. Just In Time printing has gotten everybody an opportunity to express themselves, opinions, etc. And I subscribe to going back to the foundation of where the information come. Yes, the language may have changed, the buzzwords may have changed, but it's all built on the same basic process thing. And I, uh, know you understand that.

Speaker B: So certainly, what do you hope your legacy will be when it comes to entrepreneurship and education?

Speaker C: Wow, you know, I hadn't thought too hard of that. Uh, I want to see, uh, successful businesses that I had a part of, uh, adding to those people and uh, it could be uh, the real opportunity for me to continue to do the coaching I want to. A very, very old age when I

Speaker B: think, um, you are instrumental in a lot of different businesses. I think that's going to be your legacy, that you're kind of handing off the baton as if you're in uh, an Olympic ra. You're handing the baton to the next entrepreneurs to take the baton and take it to the next step or to the finish line.

Speaker C: Well, Nick, that's interesting. You say, I was told yesterday they say, coach, when you gonna get out of the bus driver's seat and get in the back seat so you can just observe. And I'm like, yeah, sounds really fun. So I think I'm on the cross, uh, crest of having uh, prepared a number of people and I want to continue to do that. You know, I, I'll, I'll say this this way, since I'm a big Kansas City Chiefs fan, I might retire when Andy Reid retires because I, I think he's going to win some more Super Bowls. So, you know, I want to win some more Super Bowls. I want to develop more talent and we'll see what happens after that.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I see a lot of people that, that uh, don't go and um, leave a legacy or they've just stopped, right? They Retire. Like you said, you're not going to retire. I mean, it's kind of like you just ended things. I always feel that there's, it's always necessary to have something ahead of you to, to strive for some, some goals. And I, I don't ever want to just end that by, hey, I'm going to retire. And I'm leaving because I see people retiring. Um, I kind of like building businesses. It's, it's, it's part of that thrill. It's like you're a general and like General Patton before he gets the 3rd army to go out and plan and execute.

Speaker C: Win Lose before was one of my favorite generals. You must use AI to go and do some more research. That's one of my favorite.

Speaker A: I, I did not.

Speaker B: I, I just, I just threw that out there. But, um, but I, I think you're striving for more and, and you know, still having goals because I guess I kind of feel like when you retire. Nothing against people that retire, but for me, I always feel that I always have to have something to strive for and to go for, whether I'm 60, 70, 80 years old.

Speaker C: Well, I mentioned going to Cybernetics, uh, the Psycho Cybernetics foundation, and look up what they say about those things because that's how we are built. We are built as goal seeking.

Speaker B: Wasn't Cybernetics the company that built the Terminator?

Speaker C: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I thought it was that, you know, Psycho Cybernetics brings what our most powerful tool is, and that's our brain. You know, uh, you know, the cybernetics part is that, uh, that brain operates this body that we have in a very similar way. That's why we have been able to develop, uh, cyborgs.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: While we've been able to develop that. So you, uh, combine physics with psychology. That's all that is. Cybernetics is nothing but physics.

Speaker B: Do you have, um, maybe one book? I know you mentioned several books earlier, but is there one other book that comes to mind that would be very helpful for founders that maybe you haven't mentioned here today?

Speaker C: Well, for founders and startups, I always subscribe because we try to teach the mindset, which was important. Point of your go get. Who Owns the Ice House? By Clifton Talbert. Who owns the Ice House? Very simple way of learning how to think like an entrepreneur or. And it shows a practical application of it against all odds. Actually, the tagline is who owns the Ice House? An unlikely entrepreneur. Unlikely entrepreneur.

Speaker B: I'm gonna put that on my list. Do you have a favorite quote that keeps you grounded?

Speaker C: Favorite quote. And you see, you got me thinking about General Patton. I can think of one. And it gets back to the goal seeking and what you said, uh, uh, John Bradley was bringing George Patton back into, uh, Europe, uh, during World War II and they wanted him to maneuver his tanks. And uh, one of the things they knew about George is they said, hey, give him some headlines and he'll give you another hundred miles. So give us some headlines. Because we all have our reasons why we do things. We all have our motivations. So I would say, uh, that one because it leads to what your motivations are and it will determine how well you do it. If you want to be motivated by money, that's one thing. If you want to be motivated by recognition, that's another thing. If you want to be motivated by being on the top and being the, let's say on, in the business world we talk about the stack rankings in the sales, right? Who has the most revenue. If those are your motivations, you know those are going to change over time. So the tagline, uh, not necessarily general patents I would use is change is inevitable. Do not be afraid of change. And change is the best transformer that you can have. So don't be afraid of it.

Speaker B: What's the one skill every entrepreneur should work on regardless of their industry?

Speaker C: We talked about it. Mindset. Because it's going to get you right. It's going to get you right back. The as you're in your entrepreneurial journey, you're always going to have the power to choose. You're always going to have to recognize opportunity, you're always going to have to put ideas in action. You're always going to have to pursue knowledge. You always have to consider building wealth, building community, building brand. And the key one, Nick, do you know what it is? The last concept? Uh, perseverance. Perseverance.

Speaker B: Okay, you mentioned that you don't have to have that.

Speaker C: That's what I would say is critical. Work on your mindset. That is to me the most important. And yes, of course we'll throw in financial modeling, financial knowledge and all that. But to me it's mindset.

Speaker B: So Coach, couple things. What's the best way for people to get in touch with you? Uh, to find out more about the class that you teach and maybe how to get in touch with one million cups. Is there a best way to find, find you online, website or social media?

Speaker C: Yeah, I would do. I'm going to give you two opportunities to do that. You can Contact me@info eccoachesclass.net or you can contact me at HTTPs full colon forward/force class, forward/vgi IO coaches class that will take you and bring you to my office, actually. And I'd like to meet anybody personally that is really concerned with entrepreneurship and is seeking help from myself and my collaborators like Kaufman, the Association of Training Development and others.

Speaker B: Yeah, and the class that you do teach has taught me a lot, given me structure and uh, certainly helped me from the financial perspective. Right. To, to do the P and L and forecast of revenue, um, which, you know, obviously we talked about earlier is critical. Um, for me personally, that's been very helpful to round out what I need to do to get to the next step with Zar Clothing. And so you've been instrumental personally for me and I think, um, your class is helpful for anyone out there that wants to take their business to the next step. Bert can, can be that person. And that class doesn't have. You don't have to be in Dallas because there were some women in our class that were in different states or different locations. Right?

Speaker C: Yeah, well, we, we teach a, uh, class called Kaufman Fast Track, and I think I mentioned it. We teach this, uh, process, ideation, position, commit, refine and launch five step, five modules. We teach that, uh, Nick has been, uh, really instrumental in helping us even teach a better class because he's an entrepreneur grad already. He graduated from an entrepreneurial school. So I think you were our first student ever that came in with the entrepreneurial thing. So it helped us a lot of ways assess what we were doing, see if we could strengthen some of the things that we're doing because we're dealing with a different level of a person. I'm giving you that you appreciate it. You've already been through that. And so, uh, that was very helpful for us and we really appreciate, uh, Nick, all the things that you're doing out here. And by the way, I'm going to come in, uh, I'm going to come to the tea party tonight. I think it is.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: Yeah, Um, I think I'll be at the tea party tonight.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: I'm going to tell others.

Speaker B: Okay, well, I appreciate that. I will say that there were three things that I got out of your course. Uh, it's been great to know you and also the young ladies that, uh, were in our class. But it's given me structure, right, to be able to, uh, fill in the blanks in areas where maybe I'm like, oh, you know, I know this, but I haven't gotten as deep as you've asked, so it's got allowed me to get deeper into certain, as far as my market and description of who we're targeting, things like that. And the third piece is the most important probably, is the financial piece. To be able to get the financial piece, because as you said, you've got to be able to understand the P and L, you've got to be able to speak that language because you're going to be asked when you're standing in front of the angel investor, in front of the venture capitalist, or anyone who wants to know about the business, and you need to be educated around it, and you can't say, hey, let me go find somebody else. Um, because I'll be honest, one of my weaknesses and stuff like that is like, let me go call my cpa. And you can't pull that card, right? You need to be able to go in there and say, you know, cell C26. Why is that number? That number? How did you get there? And why did you get there? Right? And you have to be able to explain that. And so your class has put those things together for me, despite all the other education and things like that. You've put real world meat and potatoes into my business plan and help me round everything out. So I thank you for that. And I would encourage anyone that's starting a business, and especially if they're midway or in their early stages, beginning stages, to take Bert's class, uh, because you will definitely help give them that structure and think about a lot of things that you haven't not thought about, uh, to prepare you for that next step.

Speaker C: So thank you, Nick. This has been a great opportunity for us to get to know each other, uh, a lot better. You get to know me better, and I appreciate everything you do and look forward to another session with you.

Speaker B: Well, thank you very much, Coach. I appreciate you joining us here on the Build you'd Empire podcast. And, um, hopefully we'll have you back here maybe to give us some updates in a few months.

Speaker C: Thank you, Nick. Look forward to it.

Speaker A: Thank you for tuning in to the Build you'd Empire podcast. Producing the show takes time, money and resources, and we deeply appreciate your support. Here are three simple ways you can help us keep this broadcast going strong. Number one, visit our website at buildyourempirepodcast.com to join our email list. Stay updated on future episodes, exclusive content and everything happening in the Build you'd Empire community. Second, if you'd like to make a small donation to support the podcast, you can do so@buymeacoffee.com buildyourempirepodcast. Every contribution helps us continue to share inspiring stories and valuable insights. Thirdly, maintain the build you'd empire mindset, where some comfortable and stylish athleisure wear from zarclothing.com whether it's for you or a gift for someone you care about, you'll find apparel designed to empower you to build Your Empire. Use code CZAR25 for 15% off your shopping cart. And finally, if there's a specific guest or topic you'd like to see on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me a line at nicholasildyourempirepodcast. That's n I c h o l a s@buildyourempirepodcast.com thank you for being part of this journey together. Let's keep building empires. We'll see you on our next podcast.