E32 Mel Roberson

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Bust and Beyond

Speaker B: with your host, Robin Hayhurst. In this podcast, Robin will introduce guests that have known failure and want to share their story about how they got through it and what happened next. This will make you learn how to see things from a new perspective and avoid making the same mistakes. Please welcome Robin Hayhurst. Hello and welcome to Bust and Beyond podcast. I'm very pleased to be joined today by Mel Roberson. Hello, Mel.

Speaker A: Hey, how are you, my friend? Good to be here with you, Robin.

Speaker B: I'm really good, actually. So I've had a good day. And what's the weather like out there? Because it's not so good in the UK at the moment.

Speaker A: I remember weather in the uk. I actually studied at Regents University in central London, so I. I do remember UK weather. But, yeah, it's sunny here in Chicago. It's only. It's still morning because you guys are a little bit ahead of us on the other side of the pond. And it's, uh, about 80, 82 degrees today, so I don't know if you guys use Fahrenheit or Celsius. I don't remember that used to use Fahrenheit.

Speaker B: Okay. It's about 17 degrees C here at the moment. And we're all moaning because that's it raining. No, not the moment. It has been did yesterday. Uh, but we love to moan about the weather. It's our big pastime, right? So. Because it changes all the time, so it gives us something to moan about. So, Mel, tell me about what you do and kind of your journey to where you are now. Really?

Speaker A: Well, that's a bit of a loaded question. I do a few things, right. So I've been in the business world. I've been an entrepreneur since 1999, so for the span of 25 years here. And I've evolved, uh, as an entrepreneur over the years. So currently what I do the most is my wife and I have a professional development company and coaching company where we provide seminars and workshops for organizations from small organizations all the way up to Fortune 500 companies. Give you an example, one of our clients does the milk for Starbucks Here in the States, we have another client that's a huge pharmaceutical sales company. So we provide a variety of training on leadership development, corporate culture and morale, diversity, equity and inclusion and access, and a variety of topics. I also have an insurance arm or. Uh, so our company is called the Roberson Resource Group. And primarily we do trainings, but we also have resources for companies as well. And so, uh, a little over 20 years ago, I started a bit of an insurance business here in the States where we provide a legal expense plan. People pay a flat monthly fee and have access to attorneys for almost anything that they need. And we do some identity theft protection as well. So from a business standpoint, those are the two main things. I do have a few other ancillary businesses as well, but those are the two main things. And then when I'm not doing business, I'm an actor. There's a show here in the States called Chicago pd. I know some of my friends over there have seen it before because I get text messages when they're watching it. And so I play a homicide detective on there from time to time. I've been on several other major network television shows. There's an app here in the States called Tubi, which is a streaming platform. And we have the number one film on to be right now with over 17 million views on this particular film. And it's only been out a couple of months, so. So, yeah, those are the main things. But I think my most rewarding career or job out of all of that has been being a father to my two beautiful daughters and now a husband to my wife of almost two years.

Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, I've got two daughters. So I. I relate to that. That's the one thing that changed my life very quickly. For the better, for the best. I'd like to.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.

Speaker B: So that is a diverse kind of offering really, isn't it? We have something coming up. I did. I did do one acting part on a UK TV series, actually. It was called the Silent Witness.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Uh, and I had to walk out of Sight Hop, Sight Heart and go, I don't know, mate. Well, it took about four takes. The director in the end said, look, pretend you don't know what the question is going to be. But it was my kind of introduction to the world of acting. And, yeah, it's still out there somewhere. So it's the episode with the skip fighting. But I was. Yeah, I walked out of, uh, her. And I just actually, when I kind of got into. Realized how many times you have to go the same thing and how rehearsed it is, I just thought, this is hard work.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's definitely work. Becoming another person and making it believable and. But there. There are so many different classes. And I will say this about UK actors, because a lot of them come over here and do a lot of good work. I think that the training over there is so rigorous. While I was at Regents there, there was A class that I took there, and I did visit some other schools that had acting programs. I was working on my mba. So, uh, I wasn't even over there for acting, but I did take part in some things over there in the uk and you all have some very serious acting programs that produce some amazing talent out of there. So the acting part wasn't as hard, though, as getting my businesses off the ground. I've been in business longer than I've been an actor. I kind of got into acting accidentally. A friend of mine asked me to be in a film, and I did it just because she asked me to. But I had years and years of practice as an insurance producer and a, uh, presenter in front of groups to sell insurance policies. So by the time I became an actor, the skill set that I had, uh, learned from business helped me in acting. As far as fear is concerned, as far as fear is. Fear of rejection is concerned as well. Because, you know, uh, sales is nothing but rejection, right? You figure out how many nos it takes to get to a yes, so you just fly through the no's as fast as possible. And it's kind of the same thing in the acting world. Before I was on the television show Chicago PD, I think I had like 13 different auditions for that same TV show before I actually landed a role on that show. So in life and business, rejection is just part of the game. I think sometimes people take a. What's the best way to put it? They put an emotional attachment to rejection, and they make it think it's about them. And the analogy that I give is, if you and I were out for tea, which, by the way, when I got back to the States after being in England, tea is not the same. Right? But if you. If you were. If you and I were out for tea and the waitress came over and said, hey, would you like tea?

Speaker B: And.

Speaker A: And I said, no, thanks, I wouldn't want any. I don't want any. She wouldn't start crying. She wouldn't run to the back and say, oh, my God, we have to close the restaurant. This guy doesn't want tea. You know, it's gonna fail. And I think sometimes when people get involved, especially in sales, they're marketing something, and if somebody tells them no, they think it's the end of the world, when in all actuality, it's just part of the process. So if they stay committed to the process and learn how to deal with objections and learn all of these other skills that you learn by being in sales, you know, life is great. So Uh, I guess that was a long way to answer a question that you didn't ask me, but hopefully it brought value.

Speaker B: Well, at least you worked that one out. Yeah, I mean, I've done it. Sales training. And like you, I mean, I suppose 10 years ago to stand up in front of 20, 30 people would have terrified me. And it's a strange one because I could sit and do it. I often had site meetings and big meetings with lots of people, but I couldn't stand and do it. And it's only since I've been doing the coaching, which is four years now, that everything's changed me as far as that's concerned. So I've, um, completely got rid of my. Well, almost got rid of my imposter syndrome, which is a big thing. And, you know, start to realize that I can really help people. And I think that makes you push through the barriers that you have when you realize that, you know, it's important. But also, every time I stand up in front of someone and teach something or try and coach them in something, I'm trying to improve. And I'm thinking, how am I connecting with this person? Can I connect any better? And that kind of keeps your focus as well, so it kind of gets rid of the fear of doing it.

Speaker A: Right. So. So I think, uh, a couple of things. This is, you know, again, everything that I say is not a cookie cutter answer for everybody, but how I process things for me personally is in business, people either get started for passion, purpose or profit, right? And so the people that generally get started for profit don't have a strong enough reason why they're doing the business sometimes because it's all about the money. People who get started for purpose or passion generally have a reason why they got started. And so the impact that they want to have on the world or society or their community is so different that, that they push through what other people perceive as negative or what other people perceive as challenging. And not that they're not impacted by it, but like you said, if you have a purpose behind what it is that you're doing, you're more likely to deal with the rejection, to deal with the nos, to deal with the naysayers, to deal with the lean times. Because getting a business off the ground can be financially challenging depending on what it is. And that's all a part of the game, right? Out of everything that I teach my clients, I, uh, focus on personal development mindset and growth mindset the most because it doesn't really matter what type of hardware you have if your software isn't working properly. So your mental stability, the way you think, um, how you are personally and professionally developing yourself, the books you read, the people you associate with, the seminars you go to, are you constantly putting positive deposits into your mind so when life shows up to make a withdrawal, you don't end up with negative results or negative funds or insufficient funds. And in, in the bank account of your mind, that's really what it's all about. So you can really inoculate yourself in business by constantly reading something. I'm in my content space right now, but if I were to take you to my office, you would literally see books upon, books upon by like, I have probably a thousand books in my office and more books over here and more books downstairs and books in my bedroom. And I've read the majority of them. 80% of my library I've read. So who I've become is largely contingent upon, has largely been contingent upon how I've programmed myself, which is the most important thing. And if people don't do that in business, if they're not, number one, studying the business that they're in, studying that craft, but also two, doing some personal development stuff. You know, books like Think and Grow Rich, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the Compound Effect, 21, irrefutable laws of Leadership. I could go on and on about the various books that I've read. If they're not doing that, then they're going to be in for some trouble because grit will only get you so far. You have to have a mindset for business as well. And there are ways to program that.

Speaker B: I, I think people do struggle. I mean, 80% of businesses in the UK anyway are found in the first five years. I think that's often because people start for profit, as you say, they haven't got the, the passion, but also because they lose their vision. And I think you can't expect to have your vision every day. That's the way I work. You can't expect. You've got to have it and you've got to return to it again and again and again, but you can't have expect to have it every day. So therefore what takes over when you haven't got your vision is process. And, um, people aren't very good about putting process in place because they're, uh, you know, it's restricting. It means you have to follow a process, but actually it's the opposite. It's very liberating. Do you find that in business?

Speaker A: Absolutely. I saw an Instagram post the other Day. That said, people don't rise to the level of their goals, they fall to the power of their systems, right? So depending on how proficient your systems are and inside of your business, because goals are great, they give you something to shoot for. But if your systems don't support your goal, if your processes don't support your goals, or uh, you don't have any processes in place, then, you know, you don't really have a business, you have a hobby, right? And so a lot of people that don't have the systems in place end up failing. And they could have a great idea, but they've never put the infrastructure in place to execute. The four disciplines of execution, which is another Covey book, really talks about execution. Like, and that's the thing, in business school, they taught us all these different ideologies. They taught us, you know, checks and balances of accounting and finance and econ and statistics and managerial skills and all of these things, but they don't teach execution. And so in the four disciplines of Execution, he talks about, uh, a couple of different things, one of which was having a compelling scoreboard because if you're not tracking what you're doing and you're not gamifying or making it fun or making people aware of what it is that the team is after, then you're bound to fail. And the other is like really having a clear and present vision of what it is that you're doing and having the systems in place to support it. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. Without process, there's no progress.

Speaker B: This is strange because I've uh, actually read 4dx. It was recommended a few years ago and I found it game changing really kind of put a different thing and I often use bits from it. So I took my scoreboards a lot and KPIs and how important they are. So if you're playing a game, rugby, I choose rugby because slightly more complicated than football for scoring, you know, but also football, your football and our football. You know, you call it soccer, we call it football. But you know, we know who's right, we know who's right and wrong there. We've already understood that.

Speaker A: But anybody who's watching this pod podcast, I'm a Liverpool fan. You will never walk alone. Just wanted to throw that out there. So when you ball, I instantly thought Liverpool. But go ahead.

Speaker B: My daughter's boyfriend's a Liverpool fan and he's literally been devastated and losing the manager and I've never seen so almost crying. I mean there was a fake thing going around saying that he was coming back. And I said, oh, I saw this thing on Instagram that, uh, he's coming back. And he went. And for a moment his eyes brightened up and he was so Liverpool fans. But so I use rugby because the scoring is slightly more complicated. So if you're standing on rugby pitch or you're watching a game, rugby, say, but more kind of playing it, and you couldn't hear what the referee was saying, you didn't know what the score was, and there was no scoreboard. How hard would you need to push to win? How would you know if you're winning or losing? How would you know if you're, you know that you're going to have to. You just give it a bit more of an oomph, you might win. All that kind of feedback, all that stuff that you need to know, you don't know because you haven't got a scoreboard. And it's exactly the same thing with the business.

Speaker A: I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. I agree wholeheartedly. There's a difference between a group of kids at a playground playing basketball that are just shooting around, then the group that's playing aggressively because there's a score attached to it and a winner and a loser. And, you know, uh, I get criticized sometimes here in the States when I say this. I don't know if it's the same way in the UK, but I'm in my late 40s at the time of this recording, and I grew up in an era where there was no participation trophy. We didn't get a certificate for coming in last, you know, for just being on the team. Like, either you won or, or you lost. And now I think some of the resilience of our, uh, young people has been skewed based on the fact that we're extremely soft on them. And everybody gets a participation award and everybody needs to be in.

Speaker B: I think that's true. I think that's true in the UK as well. Things have changed. We've got to learn what failure is. We've got to learn to get back up and try again. And I think, you know, I love the idea of the difference between success and failure is success is standing up one more time than you fall over. I've always seen, and I, you know, it's. I've never had kind of a big conversation about it, but I've always seen Americans having a much better attitude towards failure. The failure in business is quite acceptable, and that's fine. And I think in the uk, it's more shunned upon. That's the way I've always looked at it. And I think there's some great. Again, I do watch a bit of social media, you know, it's terrible and great at the same time. But now, if an Englishman saw a Ferrari going past, he'd mostly go, bugger, uh, you know, rich bastard. And we would expect that American would go, wow, hasn't he done well? And I think that's kind of sums up the difference in attitude of the two countries, really. And there is a lot of difference. I mean, I remember years ago I signed up to a Tony Robbins thing about marketing and stuff like that, and all these guys are doing this market in the US and they're getting really good results. I use exactly the same marketing systems and get no results because I think the countries are actually very different in lots of ways.

Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So Chevy, Chevrolet is an American car company. And you have to know. This is a story about. You have to know your market. And so back in the 70s, I believe it was, Chevy came out with, uh, a car called the Chevy Nova. And it did extremely well here. Extremely well. And so once it did well here, they said, all right, we're going to take this to other countries. And they took it to Mexico and sold no cars. Because Nova in Spanish mean doesn't move. Right. So. So you have to know your market. You got to know your market. Everything doesn't work everywhere.

Speaker B: No, I totally agree and I think. But there are these kind of fundamental differences and I know there's even a language difference. You know, you don't. I don't think you do. You know what a fortnight is?

Speaker A: Well, outside of the video game, it's a video game here that's the most popular.

Speaker B: Fortnight in the UK means two weeks. I'll see you in a fortnight. So there is a language difference as well in some ways. And, you know, definitely scones or whatever. Is it British biscuits or you call them? Yeah, biscuits and cake and stuff like that. So there's quite a few differences there, I think. So we met on Sarah Gray's event, which I was quite impressed with. So I invest quite a bit in my m. Own kind of learning and learning more. And, you know, I read a lot of books and I do a lot of courses and stuff like that. And Sarah was talking about marketing and marketing particularly, and you're one of the coaches on the event and we got chatting and you very kindly said you'd come on the podcast and have a chat about it. How do you Know Sarah, how did that connection happen?

Speaker A: I was in her classes, I've been in her classes and I get results. So, uh, I believe in our system. And so she asked me if I would do support. My wife and I too, we've done a few events with Sarah if we would do support for her clients during the event. Because we kind of know the system, we know the questions to ask. We're also in the coaching space. So it was easy for us to support something that we believe in and help people get their questions answered and, you know, even have some coaching sessions with them and give them some tips based off of what we learned about their businesses.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it was definitely interesting for me the way it was almost like. So for people that don't understand these events or haven't been to them or not involved with them, it's like watching a television program. So it's a studio as opposed to a someone sitting at the desk where there's this copy of Interaction. All the faces on Zoom are up on the wall, you know, so big screens with all these faces and stuff. And it's a three day event. So three days sitting on Zoom doing something. And it was pretty engaging. I didn't have high hopes for it when I kind of went, but it's pretty engaging and really interesting. So it's just another kind of way that when you're trying for success, when you're trying to move forward, and particularly when you're passionate about helping people, that you invest in yourself. And I've done that for the last three, three, four years, actually tens of thousands of pounds. So I keep investing in myself and moving forward like that. So how did you going back to your companies? Because we're very diverse conversation here. But you know, I think it's worth doing. Go back to your companies. What made you start your first company and which one was it?

Speaker A: Huh?

Speaker B: Huh?

Speaker A: It's funny, right? Necessity is the mother of invention. My first job out of college, I was fired from and I didn't like my. I didn't like my regional director, he didn't care for me. I won't even name the company, but I got fired from it. I won't even go into extensive detail about the company, which the funny thing is I coach one of its competitors right now from the first company that I got fired from back in the 90s anyway. So I got fired from this company and I didn't like the feeling of it. I didn't like the feeling of somebody telling me my value, what I was worth uh, basically holding the balance of my life in their hands. I didn't like the feeling of it, so I said, I'm going to start my own business. Didn't have a whole lot of business experience, but what I did have and what I did study a lot of was leadership. I was a political science major in undergrad from my first, my first degree. And so I studied a lot of leadership principles, basically governmental leadership. But every school that I've been at, from elementary school to high school to college, I had been the president of the student body. And I started reading and listening to John Maxwell and a variety of other leaders. There's a book, Abraham Lincoln was one of our presidents here. There's a book on Lincoln style leadership and some of the things that he did. Winston Churchill was another leader that I studied and his ability to have tenacity in the face of adversity. And so I studied all of these different leadership principles and I was like, okay, this is something that I can talk about easily, so let me develop some leadership courses. And I did that. Then I found a niche in the social service industry here. I grew up in the inner city of Chicago in a, ah, pretty rough area. So much so rough that I know you guys don't have a big gun culture over in the uk, but Americans love their guns, right? My senior year in high school, I was shot outside of our apartment building. I was 17 years old and I got shot in an attempted carjacking. So I was very aware of the problems that inner city teenagers were going through and I kind of gravitated towards giving back to the community. And while I was speaking to kids voluntarily and doing my leadership programs with other organizations, the social service industry said, well, since you understand the youth and you work in leadership, can you do sort of a bridging the gap between type deal? Because social workers here were in there, I don't know, the average age was in their 50s and you're dealing with people that are 12, 13, 14 years old. The differences in the age culture is just different. Like you don't understand what these teenagers are going through because times have changed significantly. Technology has advanced. The introduction to certain drugs that were sweeping the Chicago area at the time was just a whole lot. So I ended up doing coaching inside of uh, social service agencies for a while and that's where I was introduced to the insurance industry. So started out coaching and doing seminars and leadership programs and stuff like that. And while I was at one of my clients places of business, a young lady came in and offered this legal expense plan, I'd never heard of it. Now I'm in my early 20s at this point, so it's not like I had a lot of legal woes or had a lot of life experience, but the plan just made sense because here in the States, there, it's a very litigious society. People sue over anything. Uh, I don't know if this story got to the UK, but there was a lady that went to McDonald's, spilled hot coffee on herself and sued McDonald's and won.

Speaker B: Mind, we have a version. We have a version of that because. Yeah, I forget the reasoning, but I have heard that story. But I think, you know, from an outsider looking at the States, though, I kind of. I just think something's. Is capitalism got gone wrong, you know, and it so doesn't need to be, but it's. I, it seems to me that, you know, I look at politics as a circle. Any extreme left or right is the same thing. Dictatorship. And America just seems to the moment, from the outside. So not as a kind of educated, you know, knowledge of it. With Trump and what he's doing and with gun culture, everything else. And also with your problems with health care. We have problems with health care, but they're very different. It just seems to have gone completely wrong and that it's, you know, it's all about the big bucks. It's not about people, at least that how it feels like from. From the outside anyway. So. Sorry.

Speaker A: I agree to a degree. I understand how you feel, and I feel the same way about a lot of those things. It's interesting. When I was, when I was studying at regents for my MBA, it was 2018 and we were heading towards Parliament and there was a protest outside because Trump actually happened to be in town while that happened. So we get from the tube, we come up, and I see just a sea of people that we weren't expecting and a big blimp, a big Trump blimp in a diaper, calling him a baby. You know, it was very interesting and, uh, somebody heard my American accent and they were like, oh, my God, you came all the way over here for the protest. Like, they thought, they thought I was that gung ho ho to get on a plane and come over and protest. I was like, I'm in school. But, yeah, this is, uh, all interesting. And. Yeah, anyway, so back to the story. So I had my coaching business. I got introduced to the insurance industry with this legal expense plan, right? Giving people the ability to have access to an attorney for about a dollar a Day, which in the states, attorneys charge 3, 4, $500 an hour. And so I was very fascinated by this plan. And I found out that there were parts of Europe that already had legal expense plans. And it was common in, like, Germany. Like, almost 90% of the population had it. So I'm like, oh, this just kind of makes sense. And I added that to my product mix, to what I was offering my clients. So I was like, okay, I need to be more than just coaching. Uh, I need resources that I could offer people to enhance their lives. So I started doing that. That started growing, escalating really fast, and it was paying me so much more than my co. My coaching business, my consulting business was. So I leaned towards that for a little while. And in the insurance industry, there's a. That's where I really learned about residual income, renewal income. So I built a book of business where, because people were paying on a monthly basis, I was getting checks even when I didn't work. And I built a sales team where I was getting an override. Anytime they produce, of course they got a bigger commission. But those small percentages add up. So I was like, oh, this is true leverage. Let me build this business, step back from my consulting business for a little while. Built this business, got this business beyond six figures. So, you know, that's, uh, a good renewal income. Then at that point, I'm just like, I can focus on whatever I want in life. Like, if my bills are met, my children are taken care of. I don't have to worry about a car getting repossessed or anything like that. Right? What am I really passionate about? What is my purpose? What is it that I want to do? I started acting before I had really built the business super strong. I mean, it was a good income, but I started acting. And then, uh, all of the businesses that I've been. I've created have been created out of either passion, purpose, or a need for something. So at one point in time, I needed shirts from my sales team. All the people that were quoting me for these shirts, I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, what, you guys are trying to charge me for these shirts? It doesn't make sense. I don't like your designs. I have a bit of an artistic background, so I kind of rough sketch the design. My cousin does graphic art. He did the design. And I was like, we need to make these shirts ourselves or find a printer. So we found a wholesaler who sells to retailers and print, started printing our shirts. From there, we started doing shirts, and then we did anything that you can print pins, rugs, uniforms, embroidery, hats. So I still have business interests in this company that me and my cousin created because we needed our own shirts. It kind of reminds me, I don't know if you're familiar with the, uh, Waterman pins. Are you familiar?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So. So The Waterman Company, Mr. Waterman was a salesperson and he lost a big sale due to a fountain pen, like spitting ink on a contract. Lost a big sale and he's like, this will never happen to me again. He wasn't even selling piano. I don't even know what he was selling. But in this story, his frustration and not having a product that he really needed created the Waterman company, which is one of the most recognized writing instruments in the world now. And that's how my businesses have been. Like I needed something, so I started doing it. And so, yeah, I got the printing business. I still have the coaching business with my wife. I am a seven time Amazon best selling author. As a matter of fact, literally right before we started recording this, a truck just dropped off. Oh no, they're right here. My wife is yelling, no, I didn't take them. A truck just pulled up with the pallet of our books.

Speaker B: Oh, right.

Speaker A: Our latest book, it's called Love Beyond 40 A Guide for Black Women on Finding Lasting partnership. And this is one of the things that I learned from Sarah Gray. Right. Because this book really could be for anybody, right. What we talk about in this book is the work that it takes to prepare yourself for a lasting relationship. Literally could be for anybody. Literally could be for men. But when it comes to love and romance, this is not a genre that men read, right? And since we, uh. I don't know if you guys know this or not, if you can tell, but I just happen to be black.

Speaker B: Couldn't tell that.

Speaker A: Couldn't tell, Couldn't tell.

Speaker B: It doesn't matter. In the UK we don't give a monkeys, so it doesn't matter.

Speaker A: I know you don't. I know you don't. But at the end of the day, we're niching down to who's going to buy the book. We had to pick a target market, an area to focus on. So it says a guide for black Women on finding partnership. But I guarantee you, no matter what, you could be polka dot and read the book and get lessons out of here that will help in finding love or whatever. So anyway, everything's been created out of need. Like my wife and I, our uh, our love story, we met after 40. We met in April of 2021 on, uh, a bit of a podcast. It was a thing for authors. Found out she went to high school with my younger brother. Her and my younger brother have known each other for years. We. We seen each other when my brother was in high school, but I'm four years older than her, so it wasn't really a thing. So in April, we met on this thing for authors, this virtual podcast interview for authors. We met for the first time in person on June 19th of 2022. Or, uh, 2021, rather. We got married on June 19th of 2022. So it's this whole phenomenon about, wow, you know, you guys got married really fast. How did this happen? Champions are not made in the ring, they're made in the gym. It's the preparation beforehand that gets you to a point where you're ready for what comes in front of you. And so that's what the book is really. This particular book is really about all of the things that we did to prepare ourselves for a serious relationship. And so by the time you meet that person, you're ready for it. But again, it was. Everybody was asking us, how did you do it? You know, you all are giving us hope for love. Uh, I'm, um. After 40, can you really try find true love? People are so set in their ways. Just all the different things that we heard. So there was a need for this type of information to be out there. So we literally sat down, figured out, okay, what were all the things that you did? What were all the things that I did? Some of them were exactly alike. Some of them were a little different. I was like, oh, that's interesting. I've never heard of that concept before. And we put it all in a book, and now it's available to the world. So.

Speaker B: So. So from the outside, Mel, you look. Be successful. You've. You've got seven books out. I'm, um, taking seven. This is the eight. Yes, eight. Eight books. You've got a passive income from your. Some of your businesses. You've got your coaching business. You've got a wonderful wife, two wonderful daughters. Where's the failure? What's your biggest failure?

Speaker A: Uh-huh. Huh? The failure. Wait, because.

Speaker B: Because people. People don't talk about failure. And, you know, we've talked about success, and there's loads of success in your life. I can see it, and I can see how passionate are about life.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: That hasn't come without a cost.

Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. So here's what I'll say, right? I started failing at such a young age that I never. I stopped internalizing it and I was able to get through it faster. There were things that I overcame at a young age where I was told I wasn't good enough, I wasn't smart enough, I wasn't athletic enough, you know, losing basketball games, not making teams, being looked over for starting positions, having run ins with teachers that didn't particularly care for me, all types of stuff. And I had to figure out a way to bounce back from those at a young age where by the time I got to the business world, I only saw failure as temporary. So I've been bankrupt before, right? Like, I filed bankruptcy. I've had to file bankruptcy because the debt was crazy. Businesses failed. You know, I talked about the businesses that went well. I didn't talk about the businesses that didn't go well. There was several of those. I worked with a mortgage company before me and one of my fraternity brothers that didn't do well. We had a real estate crash here in the US that, like, literally I lost everything and that, you know, what are some of the other things? I've never had a car repossessed, so to speak, But I did have a secured loan where my credit wasn't good enough. So I used my assets against the loan. And since I didn't have the money, I ended up depleting my assets, which, you know, had I not had a secured loan on this vehicle, my car would have been repossessed. Let me see, what else. The two children that I have, the two amazing children where I grew up with both of my parents in the home. And I thought at one point in time that me and their mom were going to be together forever. And that didn't happen. We're still good friends to this day, but we were the right people in the wrong relationship. So I had a failed relationship and had to raise my children outside of the home where they didn't live with me. I wasn't the primary parent. You know, I went over there a few times a week and helped them with homework and saw them on the weekends. But there's nothing like waking up with your children every single day.

Speaker B: So.

Speaker A: So the mental anguish of a failed relationship and me not being the parent that my dad has continued to be throughout my entire life was devastating. I never imagined about I would ever raise my kids outside of the house. Being fired from my first job out of college, contracts that I've lost or didn't get for various reasons. The only reason that I went back and got an MBA was, you know, and this Is I got out of undergrad in the 90s. I, I didn't start my MBA until 2017. I started working on my master's in business administration. And the only reason that I did that is because in my coaching and speaking business, there were two ten thousand dollar contracts that I lost. Two different companies to the exact same speaker, where I know I had more business experience than him. I knew I was a more passionate speaker and better on stage than him. Nothing against him, but you know, it's like comparing a, uh, Ferrari to a Yugo, you know what I mean? They're both cars, they can both get you there, but one of them is a lot more exciting to drive. And I went back to the companies and said, hey, why did I not get these contracts, if you don't mind? What was it about my offering that you didn't like? And they said, quite frankly, you know, the person that we chose, and I knew who they chose. I didn't ask, but, uh, I knew each other. We run in the same circles. The person that we chose has an MBA and we think he probably understands business a little bit better. There are some things that I learned in school that I didn't know. But nothing replaces experience. And what he was, what the request was for, what they wanted to be taught had nothing to do with anything that I learned from having an mba. So I'm just like, okay, whatever, right? So I went back to school and got that because I was losing money because I thought I needed another certification or something or a degree to make that happen. Let me think of some, uh, of the other, oh, investments, you know, like as a business owner. And once I did have some passive income, I'm like, now I need to start putting this money in other vehicles, make it work for me, whatever. Bad business deals where I've lost tens of thousands of dollars, probably closer to hundreds of a hundred thousand. Yeah, well, probably over a hundred thousand dollars at this point. And bad business deals, bad investments, things that I should have researched a little bit more. So there are a ton of failures.

Speaker B: And you're right, that's really good to know because I actually think, you know, people look at successful people and don't see all the, you know, tombstones along the route that all the problems, all the tripwires, all the anguish they've had to go through to get there. Running a business isn't easy. And anyone who says it is, you know, isn't really running a proper business. And I think that, you know, you can make it easy. There are ways of Doing it. But you. If you don't know, you don't know. And you don't know what you don't know. That's the big problem. So I think for people to be really honest about their failures, about, you know, the road they've had to take to get to where they are now, even if they're really happy place now is so important. We all look at people from the outside and think about how successful we think they are. But that's, uh, us judging them. That's us judging how successful they are. And I've had that my whole life where people have kind of perhaps judged. My success has been much more than it is. I had someone once say say to me that, well, you know, you can buy a Aston Martin if you wanted that. If you haven't got one, got one is because you don't want one. And I thought, how little do you know? But I didn't kind of answer it. I just left it at that. But, you know, people do judge you, but in a strange way. And I think I was talking to a client a few months ago who wanted to be the very best in London. And I said, well, what do you mean by that? He said, well, I want to be better than this one and this company and that company. So we looked them up. We had a look at the companies, our company's house, and their turnover was much smaller than the declared profit was much smaller than, um, what he was doing it. They weren't anything to aspire to. He had presumed. He had decided that these companies were really profitable and really good because he was looking from the outside. So, yeah, it's all really important stuff as far as that. And I think it's really good for listeners. You know, nothing to do with construction. You know, I'm in the construction industry. You know, the God discussion is nothing to do destruction. It's about people. It's about, you know, how hard it is and how failure is not kind of the end of anything. It's the beginning of loads of things. And I think that's so important.

Speaker A: I. I think all decisions give us data. And once you have the data, you can adjust, right? People say, well, Mel, how did you become successful? I say, good judgment. They say, well, how did you learn good judgment? I say, poor judgment? You know, that's the route you take. I remember Robin very vividly. Like I, uh, remember the gas station. It was on 95th street, just west of Western Avenue here in Chicago, actually, the Oak Lawn area. I was going to an appointment. I have Kind of phased out my consulting business. And, um, I was doing my insurance business. Like that was my primary focus because I saw the income potential and I really had phased out my consulting business too fast in this process. But I remember I had a coffee can that when I would come in from the end of the day, I would put my change in whatever change I had from. Had I gone to the store, got a snack or whatever. So at all of these quarters, nickels, dimes, you know, American money, and in this coffee can. And I remember, I mean, I could see, I know what I had on, it was a tan color suit with a white shirt. Uh, my air conditioning had broken my car, so I didn't have ac. It was really hot, I was sweating and I was counting quarters out of this coffee can to go inside, get enough gas to get to my next appointment and grab a snack so that my stomach wasn't growling so loud while I'm sitting with this potential client and being like, there's got to be a better way. There has to be a breakthrough on the other side. I'm literally changing, paying for petro with change and eating a, uh, diet that I really don't believe in, like chips in a candy bar. I try to be as health conscious as possible just to curb my appetite and keep my stomach from. My stomach growls really loud. So, yes, there's failure, there's times you want to give up, but in those moments, that is what determines how extraordinary you really are. And it's part of the story on the back end. So I agree wholeheartedly.

Speaker B: Well, I could literally talk to you all day. Got loads of other questions that, uh, I love, had a long discussion on Trump, so I actually understand that. But. But we haven't got time. But it was really good to join us. What I always leave with is if you were going to give someone three bits of advice to avoid failure, so. So things that you kind of got wrong and you learned the three best lessons in business or in life, what would they be? There can only be three.

Speaker A: There can only be three. Lesson number one, mentors hurt a lot less than mistakes. Find somebody who's successful in the industry that you want to be in and study them. And this is a life lesson. This is not just business. For everything that I want to be successful in, I have a coach for my health and wellness. I have a coach for. If you. I don't trust coaches that don't have coaches. So in my coaching business, I have a. Of course we talked about it. I work with Sarah Gray, she coaches us on a lot of stuff. So lesson number one. In life, there are mentors and there are mistakes. So, yes, absolutely, find a mentor. Find somebody who can show you the ropes. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. I was talking to a potential client yesterday. She's trying to open a boutique, an online boutique. And I was like, who have you studied? Who's your competitor? You know, who's done what you've done, find some YouTube videos, et cetera, et cetera. So that's lesson number one. Lesson number two, and this isn't a universal lesson. This is just one of those things where it kind of depends on the person and the product. In the States, what I tell people is, don't quit your job too soon. Sometimes people have an idea and they want to get right to it, and I. I can admire their passion, but if they don't have, number one, the mental fortitude, if they don't have the funding, if they don't have the mentorship, it could be a challenge. So I say work part time on your fortune. Work full time on your job. Work part time on your fortune. Right? Which is your business. So don't quit your job too soon. Save some money. Up for the lean times, because there are ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys in business. And when it's lean and, like, I don't want you getting kicked out of your house, right? That doesn't have to be part of your story. Adversity is part of the story, but the level of adversity does not have to be major. So, number one, find a mentor. Number two, don't quit your job too soon. Number three, the third piece of advice is work harder on yourself than you do on your business. Personal development is the key. If it wasn't for my library, I wouldn't be where I am. You got to work harder on yourself than you do, uh, on your business.

Speaker B: I totally agree with all three of those. That's brilliant and very helpful. Thank you very much, Bill. Thanks for joining us.

Speaker A: Thank you, man. I. I can't wait to get back over there. My wife has never been to the UK So we have to schedule our trip. Fish and chips. They're different over there than they are here.

Speaker B: I'm having fish and chips tonight, so, you know, it's a, uh, staple in our house, so.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me on, man. I really appreciate the time that we've been able to spend just kind of getting to know each other again. We met in a different coaching program. But the ability through technology to build relationships around the world. I don't take that for granted. And I'm honored that you would even have me on your podcast. So thank you so much. Keep inspiring people. Keep doing this. There are people out here that need what you're doing, and so I'm extremely proud of you, my friend, for having the chutzpah to keep going with this type of thing.

Speaker B: Thank you. M Mel, it's been great. Thanks for listening to Bust and Beyond with Robin Hayhurst. Be sure to tune in next time and visit his website@robinhayhurst.com.