OK, look I’m a complete geek.
In Grade 7 I taught myself BASIC computer programming and wrote a computer program for the Science Fair. This would have been in 1986 or so.
No teachers understood computers so I don’t even think they knew how to grade me.
It was the only computer in the entire Science Fair.
I was Student of the Year in Grade 8, LOL!! Seems hilarious now.
I think I won because I got high marks and I played on all the sports teams.
In Grade 9 my high school only had a dozen or so hall passes for the library at lunch.
I would get off the bus and run to get one. I’m pretty sure they had at least 10 left over every day but I didn’t want to risk not getting one.
I wrote a Remembrance Day essay in Grade 10…it was completely an optional thing to do. The history teacher asked me if I would.
I came in second place. There were only two submissions so I actually came in last but they mentioned my achievement over the morning announcements so I thought it was cool.
One of my best friends, another geek, came in first (way to go Al!!).
In Grade 9 my school average was something like 98.3%.
I’m pretty sure it was the highest average of the grade, maybe not, can’t recall.
In Grade 10 it dropped to 93% or 96%…something like that.
Math came easy to me.
And I could memorize stuff really well. I would record lessons into my Sony Walkman and listen to them on the way to school.
Other kids listened to music…I listened to myself recite history lessons.
Told you…geek. But proud of it. LOL!
I would know the material so well I got accused of cheating once because my answers matched the lessons word-for-word.
Then in Grade 11 we moved to a new high school campus, I got my driver’s license and my first car.
For the next few years I kind of lost my mind.
My marks fell all the way down to the 80s…remember, school came easy to me so I didn’t have to study too much to accomplish that.
Started going to parties that I never would have gone to before. Started hanging out with different groups of kids in school. Started ignoring my teachers. Started doing as little as possible in school. At 19 started going to clubs and began smoking and drinking.
I didn’t come out of my teenage rebellious stage until I was 24 years old or so.
Luckily, I met an amazing girl, who would become my wife, that by some sort of magic made me realize I wanted to focus on important things again.
I’m so glad I went through those years like I did. Fully got the crazy out of my system.
It then became obvious to me that I should focus on my personal finances, my future and my personal freedom.
How does this money system work anyway, I thought?
I got a corporate job at RBC right after school and realized this wasn’t the way for me.
And because of my grade-school and early high-school habits I read really quickly, processed information fast, took notes really well and could spend hours alone devouring information.
Over the next few years I read at least 300 personal development books.
At least that many, likely more.
I would get up at 5am and read for 2 hours before leaving for work…for years.
I then moved on to business books and decided the theoretical stuff like “Harvard Business Reviews” were largely useless.
There was no practical information in those things.
They were post-mortem opinion pieces of a business written by people who had never started one.
Then I stumbled into the world of marketing and learning how to get new customers for a business.
And I found a group of people, “direct response marketers”, who were hyper focused on how marketing could be reduced to numbers.
It was like all my school work came flooding back.
(See the books in the picture above? Those are just some of the books on direct response marketing from a single author that Nick and I read. When we knew we found some good business building information, we went "all-in" on it.)
I came to realize that there 3 important ingredients to business building, especially business building from scratch:
1. MATH - this was right up my alley! But this math was simple.
A new business should focus on:
Cost per Click (For every $100 online how many people click your ad), Cost Per Lead (number of clicks to get a new business lead), Cost Per Customer (number of leads to get a customer), Lifetime Value of a Customer.
When you focus on these things you don’t need a “brand” to build a business.
You also don’t need “referrals”…which was how most did it. And it is also why most businesses never grow beyond being a small business.
Math made business building easy.
It’s what gave me the confidence to quit my job.
2. MINDSET - all those personal development books I read came in handy here!
I discovered that in business the biggest thing holding you back was your own thinking.
Your own beliefs could be your biggest hurdle.
Your internal self-dialogue matters, and it matters a lot.
Focusing on the math alone isn’t enough because your personal self-image, your personal beliefs of the economy, your personal beliefs of what’s possible, your personal self-confidence will set invisible boundaries for you.
You need to nurture and invest in your mindset.
3. MOMENTUM - the speed at which you act is critical, especially at the beginning.
Most new businesses move too slowly.
Nick and I came to realize that mistakes were the raw material we needed to make better decisions.
Therefore….
We needed to make a lot of mistakes as quickly as possible because that would speed up our success.
As other new business owners were looking to “not make any mistakes”…we were looking to make as many as we could afford! And then some more!
Money is attracted to speed.
Sounds too idealistic perhaps, but we now know this to be true.
We have worked with countless real estate investors and new business operators who take months on a decision that should take hours.
Your mistakes are the raw material you need for success.
This combination of math, mindset, and momentum has been something we focus on a lot.
It helped us go from zero revenues, zero clients, zero leads to six-figures, then seven-figures and then eight-figures in revenues.
It’s given us personal FREEDOM.
Which is what we want for ourselves and for everyone around us.
That’s why at this upcoming YLYT Event on Saturday April 12, 2025 we’re going to be giving a talk on this exact subject.
We’ll go into more detail on each of these areas.
And we’ll show examples of how we progressed through the stages of business building.
We’ve come to learn that entrepreneurs aren’t actually risk takers.
We are risk-averse.
And this is a way to reduce your risk in any business.
We don’t usually give these types of talks but it fits perfectly with our theme of FREEDOM and living life on your terms.
If this interests you then you’ll want to check out the YLYT Event on Saturday April 12, 2025.
It’s an event like no other we know of.
You can find all the details here:
www.YourLifeYourTermsEvent.com
We’re approaching capacity. We have about 1,100 spots and we’re already at over 800 registered.
You won’t want to miss this.
Event doors open at 8:15am and we run all day, until 5:00pm.
We’ve never done a full day event before, we’re pumped for it!
See you there!!
Tom & Nick
p.s. Remember, spots are filling up fast. Go to www.YourLifeYourTermsEvent.com to get more details.
p.p.s. I’m still a geek and I’m proud of it!! LOL! Nick was always a bit more “cool” than me, played football, lifted weights, smashed his brand new car at 16 years old etc...but he’s come around to understand how being a geek is actually amazing. He’s a good brother.
