Surviving the Side Hustle

Building a Business and a Balanced Life: Lessons from Zac Gordon

• Coach Rob • Season 1 • Episode 53

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Unlock the secrets to transforming educational journeys and building professional networks with my good friend Zac, who shares his incredible experiences and innovative strategies as a college coach. Alongside his fiancée, Kate, Zac brings a wealth of knowledge about preparing students for college admissions and life beyond the classroom. From executive functioning skills to authentic storytelling, Zac underscores the importance of starting early and guiding students through a structured yet flexible approach that nurtures both academic and personal growth.

Ever wondered how to turn the fear of cold calling into a multi-million dollar success? Let’s unravel the power of communication and networking, crucial for both sales and job applications. Collaborating with a top independent job recruiter, we dive into practical advice on mentoring, initiating conversations, and scaling a business with effective communication. I share my personal journey—from overcoming the anxiety of phone calls to building a $125 million education company—offering you actionable insights to conquer your own challenges and drive long-term growth.

In our final discussions, we emphasize cultivating a growth mindset and balancing professional ambitions with personal well-being. Discover the transformative effects of daily visualization practices, inspired by legends like Kobe Bryant, and learn how maintaining a high-value service mindset is key to significant business achievements. We also highlight the importance of setting realistic expectations, avoiding burnout, and harmonizing work with personal life. This episode is packed with rich narratives and essential tips to help you navigate both career and personal paths with confidence and resilience.

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Rob:

what's going on? Today? We've got my good friend Zac. Dude, you've got some of the best energy. I love hanging out with you. I knew when I first met you I was like dude, I gotta hang out with this guy more often and we're actually due for another, like coffee, lunch kind of thing. We've been doing that every so often, uh, and I'm glad that we've got time to square away and have you on the show. So how you been, man, man, what's going on?

Zac:

Brother man, first of all I got to say thank you. I appreciate it. As you know, I'm newer to this area We'll get into the backstory of it but I was looking for good men to meet and you are on my short list, brother. It's really great to connect with you. My life has been incredible lately and I'm really excited to be chatting here with you about all this stuff today. So thank you, man.

Rob:

Cool, nice, I love it. I'm really glad to have you on today too. But before we kind of get sidetracked as such, would you mind kind of sharing a little bit about who you are, who you help, kind of thing?

Zac:

Yeah, yeah, Great, great starting point. So my fiance, Kate, and I beautiful woman behind me here she's been a longtime college coach and I've been a longtime educator. So very recently, over the last couple of years, I've joined her company to help scale it. I am a lifelong educator. I've taught high school college. I actually taught high schools and colleges I went to, and across a wide range. I've taught everything from world history to robotics, web design. I have a big love for life and being big and engaging with it, which is hopefully going to come out in our conversation, out of our conversation. But you know, right now a lot of my focus is on business growth solving the education problem and personal development Right.

Rob:

When you say college coach, what do you mean by that?

Zac:

Dude, that is a great question and even as a former educator, I didn't even know this field used to exist. So colleges, many of them, are getting twice as hard every year to get into right. So what a college coach does conventionally is help you choose your courses, help you pursue activities, help you do projects outside of school, help you do everything to be an outstanding candidate for a great school. And then where Kate excels is she helps students tell their story.

Zac:

Like most people cannot sell themselves in an authentic, powerful, intriguing way in like 500 characters right, or 500 words, so that's kind of our process of data admissions. But where we really excel is like our goal is not just to help you get into college, we want to help you rock life right. So we've realized that the secret to getting into a great college is leading an exceptional life, finding few interests and taking them just to the next level. And so that's where I kind of fall a bit more into the college prep side because of my coaching background and teaching background, and that's a quick overview of what a college coach is these days.

Rob:

So when do you start working with kids? Is it like a junior year, high school kids kind of thing, or do you start with kids who are already in college, or what does that look like?

Zac:

Yeah, the college prep side of things does that look like? Yeah, the college prep side of things starts in middle school at the earliest, but generally we're starting in ninth grade. We're making sure they've got really strong executive functioning skills, time management like time management levels, like what we operate at right. We're trying to instill that in the kids young and then by sophomore year we're teaching them how to build their professional networks. So they know professors, they know professionals, they know people in potential career paths that know them, not just because it's their parents' friend, because they have a relationship. And then the application process starts junior year with researching, schools visiting and you and I are talking mid-summertime. We try to actually have our applications done before senior year. Most kids they kind of panic senior year. They just do it all at the last minute.

Rob:

So we're all about getting ahead of schedule. Yeah. Yeah, that was definitely like me, me too. But you said you're helping them kind of with their professional networking and kind of learning people and kind of building that network. What happens when you work with a kid who doesn't necessarily know? Because I know I changed majors, I switched. I didn't know I was going to be where I'm at currently, back when I was in high school. So how do you handle stuff like that?

Zac:

It's a great question. I think about this often because I remember in my ninth grade I had to list out my professional goals and I wanted to be a professional, sponsored aggressive inline skater. Professional musician was my backup plan. Turns out, I got way too hurt skating and I did pretty good in the music world but I ended up dropping out of that because I'm like I'm going to end up dead if I just do rock and roll for my whole life.

Zac:

So the way we go about this is we work with what your interests are at that time and just go deeper into them, right, so you might be into different stuff later on, but part of where Kate comes in is we try to help you understand the flow of your life and be able to communicate. Hey, I was super into this, but then I realized this about myself and I had this experience and then I was into this. You know, and Kate and I are both I think you too like when we get into something, we get into something. This is also kind of personal philosophy on that realm. So it's going to change. But you'd be surprised, man, if, if you and me were our younger selves coaches, we probably could have had a little bit tightened up path. Part of what we're doing is helping them look 10, 15 years in the future. Talk to some professionals, do some research into the field and that helps. Um, you know, take out some of the distractions and help a little bit. But you're right, life is a little nonlinear sometimes, wouldn't you say?

Rob:

man? Yeah, definitely. Oh man, you said you mentioned something about communication, uh, about a minute or so ago, and I just want to ask because that's like I'm constantly learning more about communication and how I can communicate better. So I know certainly, even last year I've made leaps and bounds since last year my communication level Imagine these kids that you're working with, how do you help them communicate what they're trying to do and all that stuff. That's like insane.

Zac:

Yeah, it is, and it can get very specific to each kid, right. Like I have a kid who's a little more shy and he's just working on how to like look people in the eye, speak up. He's burning inside to ask a question, asking it, and you know, I'm a big proponent of.

Zac:

I never have expectations of a person if they haven't had a chance to practice it 100 times, 1000 times. I'm a big proponent of. I never have expectations of a person if they haven't had a chance to practice it a hundred times, a thousand times. I'm not talking other people in life, but if someone is under my tutelage then I'm of that old school be more afraid of someone who did the same kick a thousand times versus what's the reverse. Do you know what I'm?

Rob:

saying I'm trying to be fearful of a man who's kicked through practice one kick 10,000 times, versus someone who's practiced 10,000 kicks once.

Zac:

That's it. So some of this stuff is just giving them the opportunity and chance to practice, right, um, but we also have a leaning towards professional networking, right. So something big that we're teaching is how to do cold outreach, like if you were to email a professor at Columbia because you're potentially interested in something they're researching. How do you bring value to them, how do you write in a way that gets a response? And then follow up and nurturing relationships over time is another big one, because and I'm sure you realize like anyone in the business world follow up is key, right, in sales you got to make a bunch of connects before someone really starts to engage, and that's a skill set we don't see being taught in schools is how to engage someone outside of your radar, outside of your community, and build a relationship over time.

Zac:

And because we're in the college coaching world, we can keep it to the academic, professional kind of things, but we also have a curriculum that covers how to speak, man, your posture, the eye communication, the nonverbal communications and that sort of thing. But the cool thing about when we get to work with kids over four years, right, is we're not trying to just teach them something on a weekend and have them learn to communicate better. So it really evolves over time and all of our kids are paired with the one-on-one coach that builds that relationship and gets to know them. But, man, communication important. So I gotta ask you a question, man, like what? What's a lesson in communication that you've learned over the last year? What's a valuable gem we could take away, man?

Rob:

uh well, I think it's the number one thing really is understanding the context, because without knowing the context of where you're trying to communicate, um it's gonna, the message is not going to land. Miscommunication is the baseline. So as long as you can get the context down and around, then that's the first step and then you can kind of keep moving forward from there. But yeah, miscommunication is the baseline. I learned that from one of my mentors, brett Garthalamule.

Zac:

That is such a good one, man. I'm writing that down. I love that from one of my mentors, brett Garthal. That is such a good one. I'm writing that down, I love that.

Rob:

Yeah, um, and I love what you were saying too, about being proactive with the kids to reach out to professors that they're potentially interested in having in the future. Um, and then doing that pulled outbound reach, because that transfers over into almost any kind of aspect that builds confidence, and not being afraid of rejection, but then also putting yourself out there, being vulnerable and then trying to be more I don't want to say aggressive, but proactive on it. I was just having a conversation with one of my clients the other day that they want to make more sales, they need to have more conversations, they need to go out, and they got to talk to people and push, push, push, push. Same thing with somebody else that I was talking to was looking to apply into like a million different jobs and they just blindly send out applications and then I was like, dude, you got to look for somebody in the company and start reaching out, show them that you're interested in the position and start having conversations with people who work there.

Zac:

Dude. I want to jump on that because the newest part of our business we partnered with one of the leading independent job recruiters out there job placement, guaranteed job placement because as tough as applying to some of these colleges is getting a job out of college. Man, that's also really tough and getting a great job with a future and a trajectory. So you really hit it. We're trying to teach them skills that are going to really last them a long time. And you know, I've noticed that students are shocked and all of us are when we realize like some of our fears around communicating begin to melt when we do it enough and we get awkward and we get uncomfortable and we keep doing it with tutelage and with guidance. And then we realize, wow, like it opens up a whole new reality, a whole new world of being able to connect and communicate and pull people into things. So, wow, communication, such a big one man.

Rob:

Yeah, you just talked about the fear there. It kind of made me laugh, because so many people nowadays that never answer the phone when it rings. They almost always refer right to text message and stuff. Bro, why do you think that is? Do you think that's just because it's more comfortable with text? Maybe, or what do you think that is?

Zac:

because we've developed means and ways to communicate that require less and less confrontation, less and less vulnerability, you know, less and less opening and putting ourselves out there. So I mean how and why. I won't go into that speculation world, but this is something really important that we're trying to share with these kids. Like just getting them to call a school or call a person or call to find out something is so unnatural and for myself, you know, I could bring it to myself because, like I said, one of my focuses is business. So we've been growing this college coaching company from zero to we're going to $125 million education company and if part of that is a lot of phone calls, man, so I can just say for myself that getting comfortable with calling people, with cold calling, warm calling, with following up, with keeping things creative, like it's man.

Zac:

I went through a lot of growth with that over the last recent couple of years of putting myself through that process. And they say some people should have certain jobs just to get that life experience. I definitely think that having a sales job, it teaches you some things and it gets really unnatural and you go through awkward stages, but then the comfort comes in, right Then it melts and you've got an incredible skill set, because being able to call people, talk to people, put yourself out there makes so many connections right.

Zac:

Yeah, yeah.

Rob:

And I love that you just shared that you guys are building a $225 million business or company, so there's definitely going to be a lot of discomfort along that whole growing stages there and you talked about just recently how having to basically take your own medicine with the calls and things like that. But what are some other things that you guys are kind of going through that might be obstacles or challenges that you guys are looking for as you're growing and building?

Zac:

Well, great question. I'll start with the obstacle we already hurdled past, which was I spent a while trying to find a good mentor right. I've always been in the education world and I've always had businesses, and they've done great six-figure-y businesses, and I've gotten really good at being able to take a passion and turn it into a viable, life-supporting operation. But what I never had done was build a multimillion dollar business or um. My goal originally wasn't even $125 billion business, but I had to find the right people Right. So, um, I got into the 10 X world. If you know Grant Cardone, some people really don't like him. I've benefited a ton, but he is a partner with another gen, brandon Dawson. I'll show you. I keep the vision board next to my office. That's him right there, and he's had success helping people again and again get to that metric. So, finding the people right, finding people have already done it as an educator, I'm not going at this alone. The first thing, though, that came to mind, man, about growth mindset in building a big business, is just re-imagining what is possible for you and, bro, like I talk a lot about you know both of us are into the physical realm, like I don't have a flex, like you, but I'm doing all right. But we have energetic muscles, you know, and there's mind muscles and sometimes you got to tear the fascia of your mind to be able to even rethink what is possible. So for me, like an often meditation I'll have is like, what is the me going to be doing? I'll wake up in the morning, I'll do my workout, I'll get my protein shake and then I'll be like, okay, me that has $125 million company and is making a significant impact on the education in this country. What is he doing right now? What does he look like? What does he dress like? What is he doing right now? What does he look like? What does he dress like? How is he speaking man? How is he clean? Cutting himself? What is his vacation with his wife like? Right, like, what is this world like has not been easy, and I would I would liken it to Olympic weightlifting.

Zac:

The amount of reconstituting of your brain matter and your mind matter to be able to think about what's possible. That has been the consistent number one thing. We target mostly wealthier, fluent families that can afford to pay for this. I come from a background of trying to do it as cheap as possible to as many people as possible. So just the mindset of charging $25,000 for a service versus $2,500, to do that in a genuine way, to do it in a way that you know you're providing a service, that you know it's valuable In fact you're underselling it, bro I cannot underplay how significant it has been in both.

Zac:

Kate and I have deep spiritual backgrounds. We're big meditators, we're big spiritual tech studiers. We're not new at trying to reprogram our thinking, in training our mind, and I think that that has been one of the number one things about this growth process. And then the third I'll throw out man has just been learning what's good business, because there's a big difference between having a passion, selling it to people, and when you set a goal, like we have man, you got to reprioritize things. You've got to do things differently. Not everything is intuitive. You have to learn how good businesses operate. Everything is intuitive. You have to learn how good businesses operate. So I think that that's probably the third biggest thing is getting the skills like how do you run a sales call man? How do you do your follow-up plan? How are you um, how are you servicing your clients? How are you communicating all of all of these things? Marketing is another one.

Rob:

we're just getting into paid ads now, and that's like a whole world in itself right, oh my gosh, I, yeah, that's a whole whole, another monster, the marketing side of things.

Rob:

Um, but before I let you dive down to that, because you're mentioning visualization and um, I I was speaking with a friend a couple of years ago and because I started learning and hearing more about the whole visualization and then hearing about, like Kobe and there's a famous study where they split this group of people into three different groups was told to just go do anything besides basketball.

Rob:

One group was told to go practice free throws on a consistent basis, and then the third group was told to just visualize shooting free throws and then when they retested the group down the road, the group that visualized shooting the free throws scored just as good as the group that went out and actually practiced it. So that, right, there was an eye-opener for me on, I need to start visualizing where I want to go and such. But I asked my friend when I was having this conversation how do you visualize yourself in the future? Because you only know what you know. So it's difficult to kind of picture, at least for me, it's difficult to picture myself with like a $100 billion company and what I would be doing on a day-to-day basis, because I don't know, like, how do you visualize when you don't?

Zac:

know, yeah, you make a really good point. So the question is like, how do you visualize something that you don't know yet? And I think, like it starts with just trying it, because even for you to stretch your mind and be able to clear your current way of thinking, just to see a loose vision at first, and then connecting, as you know, that vision to your emotions, so it's not just I could see it, I could feel it. Right. So this process, that's part of it, the practice. But the other is, you know, we've made a real effort to meet other people with 50 million, 30 million, 10 million, a hundred million dollar businesses and begin to get an idea. You start following some of them on Instagram, you start listening to some of their podcasts. You realize, oh, oh, this is what it's like. You know, I got a few books on that shelf from people specifically for that purpose. So I think you really do have to research that and put some actual intellectual and academic effort into it.

Zac:

You know, one of the books I read early on was who's the guy who used to do the walking across coals? Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins has got a book where he helps you map out your wealth, and one of the things that's really great practice, I think, for people is like okay, maybe I want to go on a yacht cruise. Well, do you know how much that costs? Have you run the numbers? Like? I'll pull back up the vision board here. You know I've calculated different costs of what these things are going to take. So I think that there's that.

Zac:

Just practice it, you get clear, and each kind of notch we go through of growth, I find, oh, it becomes a little more clear. So my vision now is at like 13% clarity. It was at 3% clarity before and next stage it's going to go up to 23%. You know, I think that there's you ask a really good question on that, and that's something I've wondered about too.

Zac:

Right, I think the key for it all is that the reason we're doing this is personal and familial freedom, and we're doing it to make the world a better place, and those are things you don't have to see them to feel them. You know what I mean. And so if I could put myself in a state of feeling totally financially free not just me, but for the generations to come and if I could feel what it would feel like for all of us to have an incredible, rich, powerful lifelong education of us. To have an incredible, rich, powerful lifelong education I that the studies have shown. If you're experiencing it now, that also has that benefit. So hopefully that answers the question, but that's.

Rob:

That's a really good thought, man yeah, um, and then we also brought up a little bit on, uh, a lot of bad businesses and just I wrote down bad business. But it made me think of recently having a conversation with Victoria about people who just try to upsell you and they're just kind of sleazy with it. Sleazy with it, um, just to get you to short-term gratification for them and they're not really thinking for the client and like, is this the best product for them and such. So how does that like show up for you and your business with, like, the kids and such, because, obviously, um, big schools are big schools, but you ever encounter kids who want to go to certain schools but you're just like, hey, maybe that's not the best fit for you, based off of everything else we've learned about you as an individual. And how do you? How do you make sure that you? Sorry for the multi-point questions, but the other part too is like how do you make sure that, um, you're staying aligned with what they truly should be kind of going after?

Zac:

god, man, I am so in this world right now that your question it's almost hard for me to view objectively. So let me think for a second. First of all, one of the phrases that come to mind is like to sell someone, you got to sell yourself. And we're very ethical. We very much believe in we've got to over, not just over deliver, but produce an incredible result. So that's really important. It's in the nature of who we are, it's part of our business and when you know, kate brought me on to help.

Zac:

I remember kind of the joking phrase was babe, you want to build a bit like, you want to learn how to sell high ticket items like come sell. Her price was $10,000, now it's 25, it'll probably go up. Um, and it was uncomfortable for me, man, and so I had to one understand what is the value we're bringing. But I had to get myself out of like, coming from a working class background, um, you know, I was well provided for growing up, but my dad was an entrepreneur, ran a small mom and pop shop. I was a teacher for most of my career. You know as well provided for growing up, but my dad was an entrepreneur, ran a small mom and pop shop. I was a teacher for most of my career, you know. So I had to also reacclimate to how much wealth especially you're in the kind of Greenwich Connecticut area where we're servicing now, and she's coming from wealthy parts of LA. So I had to acclimate to who my clients were and what resources they had and see that scale difference. But it's tough for me because I genuinely care and I often get in trouble for not selling somebody the highest package because I'm like maybe this won't totally serve them. So I think that one of the things I've heard is a heart of service makes for the best salespeople and that definitely some people are great at closing and they have this cultivated ability Like in some ways Kate's almost a better salesperson than I am in that like traditional salesperson kind of way and you could cultivate and work on that.

Zac:

But when we transition into talking about how do we really support people, one of our core values is transparency. So in that first conversation at the very beginning we're asking hey, what are your expectations? What schools are you trying to get into? What are your GPAs, what have you done?

Zac:

And a familiar question we get in this area is like well, what will it cost to get my kid into an IB school, right, and last time someone asked me that I lost that sale because I was like well, the real question is like what is your kid willing to do? There's a formula that you got to show up for this. So even in our industry, I think that there is a propensity to just be like nobody wants to take full responsibility. You know they want to say like here, do this, this and this. We're all about like get up in the car, man, sit down, let's go for a drive. We need to have a conversation and get real on this. And so whenever we're working with families, we're very transparent, it's very honest, we're setting expectations and what's kind of cool in the college application world is like you have likelies, targets and reaches, so it's already kind of conditioned and we might have to help you shift that a little bit.

Zac:

Um, but you, you ask a really good question and this is where the ethics, the expertise, um, and one of the best compliments we got recently a really incredible client I can't drop his name but, um, you, everybody in this country knows the work he does and, uh, he said you know most people will say anything to close you, but you guys actually delivered on it, man, and he's recommended us to other executives at his company and so that's the best compliment you could hope for, you know.

Rob:

Yeah, I love that. That's a powerful one and shows how hard you guys are working to make sure that you're delivering an incredible product for your clients. But I want to kind of spin it now because because that's it can be a lot. I know it is very fulfilling helping all these kids and stuff, but how do you make sure that you don't burn out yourselves on this? Because as you're going, it's fulfilling helping others but you pour too much into other people's cups. Then you're empty with your own cup.

Zac:

Yeah, bro. Well, I might not look it, but I'm a little older than some people think, so this ain't my first rodeo and I've been through a few of the phases of hardcore burnout. I was never really I don't want to say never taught. I never really learned the lesson to recently of like you got to focus all your energy on something. Being too scattered and too all over the place doesn't help. So you know, we're very big on what we call the success schedule, which is making sure that you have time for exercise. Sleep for the first time in my life I'm really trying to grok those eight hours a night. I used to pride myself. I'm just like I don't need to sleep, you know. And uh, yeah, you do. I was just talking to an education expert. She said that when students sleep they need eight to 10 hours and if they sleep for three days 35 minutes less than they need, they will perform at two grade levels lower. So three days of 30, 30 minutes less of sleep is two grade levels.

Rob:

That's nuts.

Zac:

So you know we work like my personal routine. We currently are on um cook unity meals. You and I have talked a lot about food and prep. I used to food prep. That was taking a lot of time, so we get really high quality meals delivered. It's not my favorite. I've worked as a chef. I love cooking, but the food is delivered, it's accountable, it's like great quality, organic, all that good stuff.

Zac:

Um, we're getting the sleep, we're getting the exercise, but I want to talk about I haven't had a chance to talk about this much so I want to broaden it a bit because for me, like I'm a grinder, I can keep on going and as a dude and I think some guys might be a bit more leaning this way, like boom, boom, boom. You know we go through the cycle in a day, what some women might go through in a month. So we're just built and calibrated a little bit differently. So i'll'll tell you like biggest challenge actually has been less me burning out and more how do I collaborate with a partner who's on a very different schedule? So Kate was a professional actress and model, so she might work hard for a bit and then have a ton of time off and then have a ton of time off, and you know she really likes to reset, and so I could go weeks without taking a day off. Easy, I'd love it, in fact I'd probably perform great, but Kate can't man, it'll kill her and I want to be very careful. That's not because of better or worse, like she's got skill sets that knock me off the charts. She's got skill sets that knock me off the charts, but I've had to accommodate her and so now we do one day a week as a. That's her she heard me talking about as a day up. We don't call them days off because they have to elevate us.

Zac:

So we're talking about the business, where lately we've gone to the beach and she likes to really have and I'm saying this because I think it might be helpful for some people she likes to have things to look forward to. So we're going up to an angels retreat where somebody is going to talk about angels for the weekend up at Omega Institute this weekend. She planned that two and a half months ago, one weekend, just to have something to look forward to. We're going to take a trip at the end of our season, so for her it's having things to look forward to, and having maybe a little bit more downtime than I need For me, man, inspirational videos, some pre-workout juice and just hitting the gym and grinding like I thrive off of it, and so that's kind of how I would respond to that one.

Zac:

I'm curious, though where do you fall in this matrix? And you also have a partner. So I'm curious, though, where do you fall in this matrix, like, and you also have a partner. So I'm curious if you notice differences with men and women or different individuals.

Rob:

Uh, yeah, uh. For me personally it's kind of like Kate, where I need to have a bigger picture of the seasons. So I like to look at what kind of seasons am I in? Am I in a current? Is it a grind season right now? And if so, how long is it going to be?

Rob:

Because in the past I would get into the grind and, just like you were saying, it's easy to fall into that trap of I don't need to sleep, I don't need to do anything, all I need to do is work, work, work, work. And without having a deadline or at least a stop point, it just would go on forever. So now, being able to look ahead in my calendar and kind of seeing and planning a little bit, now I can kind of coordinate a little bit better. So whether I'm in a period of focusing on business development, so recently, the past couple of weeks or so, I've been working on creating a lot of different content and pieces of value to give out to clients and give people just useful things, and then I'm going to be getting into another busy cycle for clients. So it's okay, let's wrap back up into this.

Rob:

I have to turn off my creative mind a little bit and just get back into that grind line. But then also I need to make sure that I have to still be human too. So I need to make sure that I schedule time to spend with Victoria, with friends, connect with old friends and just making sure that I'm developing those relationships. Because people think you just meet people at networking events and assume that they're going to immediately buy all your products and things like that. But whether it's networking or friends, you meet out at different events or bars or concerts and things. You still need to follow up, just as if it's like a business prospect. It's got to follow up with your friends. You got to keep in touch, you got to check in with what they've been working on, what they've been doing with their families. Otherwise those relationships tend to just die out. So for me I typically have those kind of periods of like grinding creativeness and then kind of checking in.

Zac:

Man, I love that you said that, and I want to add two things that came up as we're saying this One is I've offloaded a lot of my personal responsibility for keeping this balance in my life or we don't say balance, we say doing great in all areas. We say um to kate, so we, we appointed her chief fund officer of our family unit. So I actually like offloaded a lot of that thought and I think if she wasn't in my life and we weren't doing this together I don't know if it's true, but I heard that the divorce rate for couples that build great companies together is only 6%, where the national average is quite a bit more. So I got to give her a lot of credit because I have offloaded that and I know I'm not going to burn out in some of the bigger areas. The other thing is that I have a 10 year plan. So you mentioned seasons and I forgot that. That's super essential. I'm giving myself 10 years to get to this point and I'm pretty sure I should be able to pull it off in that time with the network and plans that we have. But this isn't a forever, because, man, when I get to that point, like my life is going to look very different right, and I'm going to be enjoying some different things going on. So I guess I am in a season and I am in that grind season Now. I'm not thinking I'm just going to be this way forever.

Zac:

Although I'm always engaged, the last thing I want to met man is brothers Like. For me personally, um, having strong, inspiring, doing well men in my life. Like you know, we mentioned we're due for another you know, guy's lunch. I have a few people in the area I meet Every single week on Tuesday night. My best friend who I've been friends with 10 years. We've pushed each other, we've helped each other, we're like real brothers. We meet every week to do accountability with each other and that helps a ton. Relationships business, all this and I attend at least two group coaching calls a week.

Zac:

So in the Cardone Ventures world is one and we're in the Grant Cardone 10X coaching community and I got to say that that stuff helps a lot Because in one I'm hearing from people that are kind of at our level and I'm learning and remembering things that they're bringing up, and in the other one I'm hearing from people that are way beyond like I'm not going to have their problems for a couple of years, and so you just reminded me that there's a few other things that help keep me rocking at the right caliber, because it's not just for me rocking at the right caliber, because it's not just for me. How do I prevent burning out? It's more, how do I sustain high performance, man, and that's something I've always been a very high energy, like you can feel. It all right, I got like a lot of energy, and it's not hard to sustain it.

Zac:

But to sustain really high levels of performance, um is something that is very much on my mind these days.

Rob:

Nice, yeah, oh man, I love it, love it. I do want to be courteous of our time, though. I know you've got a lot of things going on and such, so I've got to ask you where do people go to stay in touch? I was going to make a joke earlier about the hate blurred in the background, kind of thing, oh yeah. But so if you're interested in hearing about that, you've got to follow Zac on social media. But social media or email, how do people get in contact with you if they're more interested on the different projects you're doing or with the college coaching?

Zac:

Yeah, great question. So you know, I've got a site, Zac Z-A-C-G-O-R-D-O-N. My social is linked up there. Zac builds futures on Instagram. I'm also on LinkedIn. Our business is Kate Stone College Coaching.

Zac:

So Kate is also a great person to follow and, as you mentioned, you might catch the Blurred in the Background series. It's World War Down hilarious content. But honestly, man, I'm tight circle and head down these days. So if you're someone who's in the business world, in the education world, or wants help with your kids, we're going to jam together. But outside of that, I'd love to connect. But, man, I'm very focused at this time. So, definitely looking to connect with other awesome men and business owners, families that want help with that. Our website is universityguruscom or you could just Google Kate Stone College Coaching. And, yeah, dude, that's how you find me Would love to connect on any of these avenues. And, dude, I want to thank you again for for having me on. Man, you're, you're a good person in my life. I love seeing the content you create and, uh, I really appreciate and I'm honored to be asked on here to talk about some great topics today wow, man, thank you, thank you for that.

Rob:

That was awesome and, yeah, seriously, thank you so much for taking the time to hop on. I really appreciate you you as a human and everything you're doing and the impact you're creating for all these other kids and families around the world. But before I let you go, though, you got to, you got to tell me you talked about a lot of different things today. We talked about like visualization, preventing burnout, networking, accountability, mentors and such. If you were to boil it down to the number one, most important thing that you can share with anybody starting off their journey in the entrepreneurial world or side hustle sector, what would that number one piece of advice be?

Zac:

Man, it's going to be be the most positive person in your life. That self-talk, that belief in self, is so fundamental, man, and I think that it's one of my greatest attributes. I spent a long time doing self-forgiveness work and realizing that my value doesn't come from what I do. But then, being my most hardcore advocate man like Kobe Bryant level stuff, maybe right under him, level stuff, you know just your, your positive self-talk. Don't, don't rely on anyone else for it above you. You got to be that champion for yourself and you're hearing it all the time. So that would be my number one takeaway, man.

Rob:

Wow, I love that. That's. That's a unique answer. I haven't heard anybody share that before, so I love that. I'm I stand true with that, so thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you again for taking the time, and we got to come back soon and grab some lunch. Man, you know it All right. There you go, guys. That's what we got today. We'll talk to you soon. Peace, peace, peace.