Episode 64 - Pacing for Prosperity: Steven Pivnik's Journey from Athlete to Entrepreneur

Steven Pivnik, an international keynote speaker, best-selling author, business advisor, and serial entrepreneur, discusses the connection between endurance athletics and entrepreneurship. He shares his background as an immigrant from the former Soviet Union and how his parents' entrepreneurial spirit influenced him. Steven talks about his book 'Built to Finish,' which compares entrepreneurship with endurance sports and shares personal stories, lessons learned, and motivation for setting large goals. He also highlights the similarities between planning, preparation, execution, pivots, setbacks, and stamina in both endurance sports and entrepreneurship. In this conversation, Steven Pivnik discusses the importance of envisioning the finish line and using manifestation techniques to achieve goals. 

He also emphasizes the need to set proper financial goals and structure a business sale effectively. Steven shares his strategies for balancing personal goals with business success and finding time for hobbies. He highlights the importance of tracking finances and always being prepared for due diligence. Steven also discusses the role of a supportive spouse in an entrepreneur's journey and provides advice for getting started with endurance athletics. He encourages men to challenge themselves and step out of their comfort zones to achieve personal growth and fulfillment.

Takeaways

• Endurance sports and entrepreneurship share similarities in planning, preparation, execution, pivots, setbacks, and stamina.
• Tracking data and setting goals in endurance sports can be applied to business to gain insights and improve performance.
• The entrepreneurial spirit can thrive even in challenging environments, such as the former Soviet Union.
• Endurance sports can be addictive, providing a sense of accomplishment and motivation to continue pushing boundaries. Envisioning the finish line and using manifestation techniques can help in achieving goals.
• Setting proper financial goals and structuring a business sale effectively are crucial for success.
• Balancing personal goals with business success requires time management and prioritization.
• Tracking finances and always being prepared for due diligence is essential for business growth and credibility.
• Having a supportive spouse can greatly contribute to an entrepreneur's journey.
  Getting started with endurance athletics can be done by participating in local races and following a training plan.
• The journey towards a goal is as important as the destination.
• Challenging oneself and stepping out of the comfort zone leads to personal growth and fulfillment.

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Transcript

0:00
Welcome to maxed out man helping you
0:06
become the man you were made to be hey guys this Kevin Davis from the
0:11
maxed out man podcast I here today with Steven pivnick before we get started uh don't forget to go to max out man.com
0:17
check us out on all the social media uh Avenues where everywhere Max outman uh
0:22
just search for that or Max outman course we got some new stuff coming out in 2024 membership courses uh high high
0:29
ticket coach coing that kind of thing so go ahead and check that out uh give a quick bio Stephen is an international
0:35
keynote speaker best-selling author business adviser and serial entrepreneur aren't we all right everybody I talked
0:40
to on this thing is is a Serial entrepreneur which is really awesome uh specialized in in the information
0:46
technology Market he grew his last company binary tree to over 200 employees across 12 countries before a
0:53
successful exit to A4 billion competitor Quest software that's a that's a great
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exit that's really super cool as a trusted business adviser Steven partners with leaders on how to achieve similar
1:04
business success and perseverance in their entrepreneurial Journey Steph's passion for Endurance Sports got him to
1:10
qualify and compete in the Iron Man World Championship holy crap I'm ready to talk about that race many
1:16
ultramarathons we call you crazy people basically those of us that are not built for longdistance
1:22
running right and Summit some of the tallest Peaks on Seven Continents his blend of practical business advice and
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inspirational storytelling leaves the audience energized and motivated to go the distance in business and life we're
1:35
going to talk about his new book built to finish which talks about that that I just said which Compares
1:40
entrepreneurship uh with endurance Athletics and how really entrepreneurship is a is a race and a
1:46
journey and marathon and all of those things so I'm super excited to talk about that um we talk you know I'm a
1:52
fitness guy so we talk a lot about that kind of stuff so I'm super excited to kind of tie that in I'm not built for
1:57
running um I'm not very ER not very aerodynamic but yeah I'm super excited
2:03
Stephen thanks for joining me man and thanks for jumping on I know we had a little calendar snafu so I'm glad you
2:08
got done with your workout in time and uh and we'll have a great combo no no problem thanks for having me Kevin I I love the title of your podcast this is
2:15
like right of my alley maxed out let's go and that's what it is some people think maxed out means you know like
2:21
totally stressed out but it's actually like let's maximize the potential and optimize Our Lives that's kind of the
2:26
kind of the point but hey thanks for like I said thanks for coming I want to know kind of you know we got we got some
2:32
time so I'd love to kind of get your background how you got to where you are how you developed kind of the chall the
2:38
strategies based on your challenges based on your successes and just kind of give us the backstory really yeah I mean
2:45
without taking up too much time I I came from an immigrant family my my I was originally born in the former Soviet
2:51
Union what is now the Ukraine a town called Odessa we immigrated here in 1972
2:57
I was a I was a toddler and my parent parents were you know very very Scrappy very entrepreneurial they did what they
3:03
needed to do to put food on the table so when um I was a computer nerd growing up
3:08
my commod 64 which was like the first you know I I had one of those with like
3:13
the little the and people don't even know what a cassette tape is but use the cassette tape as the data storage which
3:19
is crazy I remember doing that I still have my original one in storage someplace I should bring it out and show
3:25
people a picture that's cool I mean this this little phony here has a million more capacity than that computer did
3:32
gosh yeah anyway so my mother recognized my um nerdy nature and she gave me a pass
3:38
to not go to college but to go take a computer programming course so that I can go get a job quickly I did that so
3:45
um short um after six months of learning how to program a language called cobal
3:50
which was a Mainframe programming language back in the day I got a job and that was the beginning of My Computer
3:56
Career um three or four years into My Computer Career I got B WR by the entrepreneurial bug that was embedded in
4:02
me you know by my parents and grandparents started my own company uh we were doing custom application
4:08
development um we were hired to it was a really boring project at that time we were hired to write a conversion utility
4:14
to convert email data from one platform to another long story short fast forward
4:20
over 20 years that tiny little program to convert email data mushroomed into a
4:25
over $40 million a year international business wow wow yeah so did a did a lot
4:31
of I mean made a data is profitable let's just say that right data is super
4:36
profitable if a large company is converting its email systems from one to another or moving to the cloud they want
4:42
to make sure their employees come in the same inbox the same calendar same contexts right so our claim to fame was
4:49
Zero disruption to the end all that data comes across perfectly and um we grew a
4:55
you know large business um we did a whole bunch of other things but that's the easiest way to describe was the the
5:00
foundation of our business so along that Journey uh my midlife crisis was finally
5:07
recognizing that I've got some bad genes in me between my parents and my grandparents they had it all high blood
5:13
pressure diabetes cancer Strokes you name it they had it I felt that that's in me somewhere some someday somehow
5:20
it's going to rear its ugly head and I want to be in the best shape possible to fight it if and when it comes I found
5:27
out about this thing called Triathlon which prior to prior to me learning about it I thought it was only an
5:32
Olympic sport I'm like how does a m mortal do a triathlon apparently there's a website
5:38
called beginner triathlete.com you can find a local race in your community short distances Train sign up race boom
5:46
you're a triathlete wow I did that um after crossing the finish line that
5:51
evening I learned about something called Iron Man and then the Iron Man world championship and this light bulb went
5:57
off my head I'm said I said to myself I don't know how someday somehow I'm going
6:03
to cross the finish line in Kona Hawaii so that goal was set so now I'm marching
6:08
along two paths right my entrepreneurial Journey with the company growing I'm doing Endurance Sports going longer and
6:14
um longer and longer distances and when I finally accomplished both coincidentally 12 months apart I said
6:21
you know what I need to write a book to memorialize the entrepreneurial journey and the Endurance Sports journey and all
6:27
for all you know my personal stories as well as Lessons Learned and tips and tricks and motivation for other people
6:33
to set large goals and that's the built that's built to finish which that I mean
6:39
I can't really think of of a better really analogy and connection between what we do as entrepreneurs yeah you
6:46
know and and you know endurance obviously but it's also you know has little spurts of sprinting or you've got
6:53
uphills you've got downhills right especially you and in in the case of a triathlon you've got you know biking
6:59
swimming running so it's three different disciplines like I mean really that's that's amazing that you're able to put
7:05
that together um is do you did you kind of see this as like an addiction for
7:11
yourself like you can kind of have good addictions and bad addictions right but they become for most of those guy most
7:16
of you guys I think it becomes a little bit of an obsession 100% I mean that that's there there's no sugar coating it
7:21
it's definitely an obsession addiction Cola what you want um it's an incredible dopamine hit when you cross that finish
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line and once you get it you want most some people are one and done and I have complete respect you know for somebody
7:33
that sets out a goal to do a triathlon or an Iron Man or a marathon and then they're like accomplished I'm done
7:40
respect you already did more than most but for for most I think it becomes a complete for me especially it became a
7:47
complete addiction and every single time I cross a Finish Line no matter how much pain I'm in within hours I'm like okay I
7:54
gotta do this again yeah we uh I'm actually I'm a I'm a two andone guy we
8:00
did um we did a bunch of Hales and then we decided to do a marathon here which I'm at 4,500 feet and then we did a
8:06
marathon in Oklahoma which is great to train at 4500 and then go do do one at like 600 feet but after that second one
8:13
I was like this kind of Beats me up it's not really something that I I you know I was great that I could say that I did it
8:19
but I'm I'm like I'm six feet I'm about 195 pounds of mostly muscle and so like
8:26
I said I'm not real aerodynamic so and I got I got bad IT band stuff going on so
8:33
that's that's excuses it it does intrigue me the whole Triathlon thing I've always thought that I'd have a really hard time with the swimming part
8:40
of it yeah I mean the number one reason most people stay away from Trion is the swimming um I was I was very comfortable
8:47
in the water but I was a horrible swimmer when I signed up for this first one that I mentioned it's called the
8:52
Sprint distance that only requires a 800 meter swim which is 32 laps yeah right
8:58
um I couldn't do two I went in my pool I went back and forth and I was exhausted for the rest of the day I didn't have
9:05
any form I didn't have any endurance I didn't know how to breathe properly went back the next day I did three laps now
9:12
that's a 50% increase and I did four laps and you're you're allowed to stop
9:17
in these races right there's buoys and there's kayakers that are there for safety so if you get winded you can just
9:22
hold on to a kayak as long as you're not making Forward Motion you can rest and a lot of people do yeah so but yeah your
9:29
point A lot of people are afraid to start because of the swimming and it's really not that bad yeah because that's
9:35
I mean and again you're not what just like in life you have strengths right you may because I know there there are
9:41
people that Excel on the cycle or excel in the running or excel in you know in
9:46
swimming and the guys that are you know top top of the game probably like you are they kind of have gotten it figured
9:52
out for all three but you know just because you're not you don't excel at all three doesn't mean you can't try it
9:58
that's bit the back of my mind to to try something like this I don't know if I could convince myself to do it but uh
10:04
for sure there there there's so many funny um you know cartoons about your athletes and one of them is why suck at
10:10
one sport when you can suck at three I like that I like that that
10:15
probably be my story I remember when we did the we did the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon which is a super cool
10:20
Marathon if you're looking for something like as a first goal for marathons but I remember this little kid he was probably
10:26
like six years old we at like Mile 19 or 20 which is like that point at which you
10:32
you go into this is this is absolute misery and now it's pure pure willpower
10:37
right to get through but he had this poster board that said toenails are for
10:43
like that was like the motivation that was so funny and so motivating to finish that race um and we
10:49
sucked like it we it was my wife and I and we were not fast or anything which is fine we we can say that we did it but
10:55
it's it's true I mean I I wouldn't want to scare you away your viewers by showing you my toenails right now but
11:02
they take a beating it's it's a right of passage for long-distance Runners yeah and so I'm curious about you know when
11:08
when you talk about your parents and the entrepreneurial Spirit you know former Soviet Union communist you know
11:15
communism and all that is not exactly something you say oh yeah there's probably a lot of entrepreneurs in in that so can you I'd love to have you
11:22
explain what that means because I can I in my mind it can kind of put things together you know put two and two
11:28
together kind of walk me through that cuz I think that's I I only remember it based on the stories that I've heard I
11:33
really didn't experience it too much other than my father took us back when I was um 18 years old so this is before
11:39
you know the Wall came down and the Iron Curtain came down um so I just heard about it you know stories basic you know
11:45
premise of Communism is everybody's equal you get what the government um deems you're entitled to everything is
11:52
rationed out you know from clothing to food to you know beer Necessities you're entitled to 1.2 rolls of toilet paper
11:59
paper a month you know four boxes of cereal or I'm just I'm making that up so
12:04
yeah you either accept that or you become really really Scrappy and you f
12:10
you you figure things out and you you figure out a way to get more than the average do is allowed and I think my
12:16
parents and grandparents did a great job of that my my grandfather was in the logistics business which me he had
12:23
access to Goods going back and forth from location to location so somehow
12:29
someway those good some of those goods you know ended up in our coppers yeah so
12:35
um you had to do that otherwise you would again you would have to get by on the bare necessities that the government
12:41
provided which was which was sad so yeah those long lines for bread for milk for
12:46
for anything were 100% true and those those I actually experienced when I came
12:52
went back there when I was 18 years old and it was pretty sad to see yeah it's
12:57
it's interesting because that shows in my mind that there is a certain first of
13:02
all that whole drive to to do more to accomplish more to provide for your
13:08
family at a level that um is beyond what you've you're being told is is the you
13:14
know because like there's a capitalistic spirit that exists I think in everyone
13:20
yeah you know I because we want that right like we want that we want more for our family or at least enough for our
13:26
family and when when everybody's telling you that that's when I mean at end of the day you know humans are hunter gatherers right so they they want to
13:34
gather as much as possible when they can and to store up for the hard times right
13:39
yeah so and you never know when the hard times coming so therefore you're always here Gathering non-stop it's in our DNA
13:46
yeah for sure which which uh you know some people have more Talent than others for sure and circumstances make make a
13:52
difference what is your I mean we kind of got the backstory of how you got there like as far as getting that
13:57
entrepreneurial bug what does that look like for you like how did you decide
14:02
okay well this is something I want to do for myself because you know to to that point even though everybody has kind of
14:08
that Spirit not everyone has the ability right you know not everybody can actually be an entrepreneur because it's
14:15
risk management it's lack of lack of fear in certain ways it's It's ability
14:20
to fail and and get back up all those things uh what do that look like for you yeah you definitely need to have a high
14:26
degree of of risk uh you can't be you know super risk avoid you can't um exercise a lot of risk avoidance because
14:33
you never get a good off the ground for me personally um as I was advancing in My Computer Career I I ended up getting
14:39
a job at a consulting company or really a staffing company where the Staffing Company would um get contracts with
14:46
large companies in my case in New York City in Manhattan and then they would go find the staff to go place on these
14:51
projects so I was placed on a project to do some work to do programming and I'm just making these numbers up a little
14:57
bit they were charging let's say the customer $100 an hour from my time and they were paying me $60 an hour from my
15:03
time making a $40 margin and which was fine at the time but I you know as time
15:09
went on I'm like these guys aren't doing anything okay granted give them credit they got me the job yeah they don't do
15:15
they don't add any value whatsoever other than collecting this margin and the more I learned about this business
15:21
I'm like that's this is not that hard to do I can go find these customers I can cut out the middleman I can make that
15:28
full building plus I can provide a lot of value to the customers that these guys aren't doing like project management quality
15:35
assurance um and a whole bunch of you know other things that this quote unquote staffing agency wasn't doing and
15:41
that's exactly what I did and at the time it was relatively easy because I didn't I I um just got married didn't
15:48
have too many expenses um I knew I can even if I only found five or not even if
15:55
I only found 10 billable hours a week of work I can you know make um make the rent payment and the car
16:01
payment so it I really didn't have you know too much to lose and my fallback plan was hey you know what I can just go
16:07
get a job if this doesn't work I can get a job yeah so uh yeah so that that's
16:12
what it looked like for me and it it worked yeah it's always nice to have that fallback plan to say you know
16:18
especially when you have in because a lot of times as entrepreneurs we have that skill set it's like well you know
16:24
if I have to go get a real job I'll go get a real job right like that's and sometimes we have to go through that
16:29
Journey for sure so let's I want you to walk me through um kind of the the book
16:36
you know stuff that you've got in there and just how these endurance Athletics really relate to our journey as
16:42
entrepreneurs right like there's there's kind of this but because I'm sure that it's I'm sure it's well organized and
16:48
you kind of go through that so you know in as much time as you want I'd love for you just kind of walk through that
16:54
without giving away the whole you know no spoiler alerts but uh you know we still want to read the book but yeah
17:00
yeah so basically what I found as I started embarking on all these endurance um Journeys I found that there's a lot
17:06
of similarity planning prepar and the book covers a lot of this yeah so planning preparation execution pivots
17:14
setbacks stamina you know all of these if I if I if I say those words each of them can be applicable to Endurance
17:21
Sports and they're definitely applicable to entrepreneurship um you know the more stamina I started building um in my
17:28
endurance Journey the more stamina I had for the hard times um in the business world uh one of the big biggest things
17:34
that I point to and there's a whole chapter on this is about um kpis and Reporting on data when I started
17:41
Endurance Sports I started tracking a whole bunch of things right there's you know all these um sports watches and little computers that track your mileage
17:49
your pace your heart rate your calories in your calories out your distances I
17:54
start getting all these reports and I'm looking at these reports and I'm saying wow I have have more data about my
18:00
training and my races than I have about my business yeah not I didn't have any reports in the business world but I felt
18:06
that these were Superior so I created this entire initiative in within the company to start doing a better job of
18:13
tracking things I met with every single Department leader and we came up with a set of metrics that we were going to
18:19
track on a weekly monthly quarterly basis and we created an operating guide
18:25
where we met we would meet um every single month as a team we created pretty little binder you know with sections for
18:31
every single department and instead of having just you a subjective you know status update um amongst all the all the
18:38
members we would actually be looking at numbers and more importantly we'd be looking at how the numbers are trending
18:44
and why they're trending in in either positive or negative Direction so that just gave us so much more insight into
18:51
every area of the business and the more insight I got in the business the more I started tracking in my endurance hobbies
18:57
and vice versa so they kind of you know they kind of fed on each other right then the goals became bigger in the
19:03
business as my goals became bigger in endurance like I went from Sprint distant Triathlon to Olympic to half
19:11
Iron Man to full Iron Man and then in the ultramarathon world I went from Marathon to 50K to 50 mile to 100K to
19:19
100 Mile those goals kept growing I'm like why can't the goals in the company start getting bigger and bigger
19:26
so it it kind of it all feeds on each other yeah the last part that I love to talk
19:31
about with the book and this is one of the final chapters is called envisioning the finish I'm a huge fan of
19:38
manifestation and envisioning things the human mind doesn't tell can't tell the
19:43
difference between an event actually happening or an event expertly envisioned in one's mind and you don't
19:50
need to become a master meditator to do this you can just watch a couple of YouTube videos just like meditation 101
19:56
to to learn how to Envision something thing when you do that the human mind
20:02
the body just automatically programs itself to make certain decisions Al um in order to accomplish what you just
20:08
envisioned and I can't tell you how powerful of a tool this was I was doing
20:13
this even before I knew what the word manifestation meant in the 90s all all of our clients at the time
20:19
were in Manhattan you know all the buildings were skyscrapers every single sales call I'd go on I'd pause at the
20:26
door I'd look up close my eyes and I say myself the next time you're going to cross this threshold this this
20:33
this building is going to be a customer of yours or this customer this company and it worked like 90% of the time so
20:40
and then I fast forward when it came time to getting ready to sell the company and also I was on this track to
20:47
get to the Iron Man World Championship I did two things I wrote a check out to myself for a very large amount of money
20:54
a specific number and I printed out a poster of kona Iron Man world championship and I hung them right here
21:00
right in front of my computer and I saw it all day every day it was in my peripheral vision I I I couldn't get
21:07
away from it so again when your mind sees that it automatically just does the
21:12
right things makes the right decisions in order to you know get to that proverbial Finish Line yeah I have a I
21:18
have a piece of paper just because I didn't print I print it's a color piece but it's my it's my vision board right
21:23
which is which is kind of that is kind of that same concept but I like the idea of writing so the intention was that you
21:29
were going to cash that check at some point is that the is that the idea right it it was basically um yeah it was for
21:37
the amount of money that I wanted to sell the company for I didn't take home all of it obviously because there's a whole bunch of expenses place after an
21:44
exit um which which many entrepreneurs don't really realize that's one of the many things um yeah when you say you
21:51
sell your company for 10 million dollar you may get like two by the time by the time everything's done it all depends I
21:58
mean I highly advise folks to create what what I call this waterfall model so you plug in a number at the top you
22:05
obviously you have to speak to your accountants to find out what the tax ramifications are of that number then there's only there's a million one fees
22:11
there's legal fees there's accounting fees there's investment banker fees there's consultant fees then there's your stock option plans and your other
22:18
Equity plans and your other contingency plans and then there's state and local taxes and there's a million in one
22:23
numbers right and then it comes down to what you Mr Mrs entrepreneur get yeah yeah people are blown away with the
22:31
difference between the Top Line the bottom line and then it really helps you set a proper goal for what that Top Line
22:38
should be to make sure that the bottom line is enough yeah because if your goal is this is if you have that goal in mind
22:45
right like if I want to get let's say just make it a round number if I want to get a million dollars there's a there's a much larger number that I have to get
22:52
out of the company in order for me to get that Million dooll number yeah I don't you know it's something I've never
22:57
sold aany but I know kind of the a little bit of the ins and outs of it but to your point about the middleman
23:03
earlier there's a heck there's like 50 of them in that scenario right so every
23:09
everybody gets everybody gets a little bit of a cut um I think it's really cool that that you because I would think that
23:17
in some cases a lot of entrepreneurs or business people or people in general will will kind of trade one for the
23:23
other right like in your case you are excelling as an endurance athlete you've got these goals and so that it's very
23:31
easy to trade those goals that energy that drive and then let your company H
23:39
not get that right we have a finite amount of energy and drive and all that how did you like first of all I think
23:45
it's super cool that you can do that but how did you how was your mindset around that um in order to kind of keep those
23:52
two I call them parallel roads right like in an entrepreneurs journey I Envision my RO my highway as like one of
23:58
those Chinese 16 M you know 16 Lane and sometimes they weave and and all that
24:03
but we really are you know multiple paths yeah I mean um you know what I I
24:09
just found a way um to make it work there was definitely sacrifices you know add in a family and two growing kids at
24:14
at the same exact time right so there's definitely sacrifices that need to be made there's there's no doubt about it and then don't forget sleep is super
24:21
important because right oh yeah we have to sleep too that's always people I hate
24:26
people that say oh I can get by in three hours of sleep you know what you're doing your body a massive disservice if you're getting by three to four hours of
24:32
sleep you know 6 to 8 is really where where you should be ideally eight um I
24:37
just found a way to make it work um a lot of people say that you know what I can't cut out television I can't cat out social media or reading well my answer
24:45
is social media works when you're on the treadmill yeah you know you can be you
24:50
can watch Netflix when you're on a stationary bike you can do the V you can watch you can listen to podcasts while you're swimming in the pool there's a
24:56
ton of inexpensive water proof headsets that you can buy yeah so you can you don't really need to give up a lot of
25:03
some of the extracurricular H hobbies that you currently have to train and that's what I did I mean I I love TV
25:10
just like everybody else I love a whole bunch of other things which are which may or may not be considered a waste of
25:15
time I can do that on my stationary bike I can do that on a treadmill I was I was in the podcast all the time while
25:21
swimming so when you really want something you figure out a way to incorporate that into your life and in
25:27
your case you were a able to weave those two scenarios into the business and you know which I'm sure helped all of that
25:34
data made your company way more cable and way more attractive and and more valuable because I don't think I don't
25:40
think people track stuff in general like I don't think people track their business right I'm I'm guilty of this I
25:46
I'm fall into what you were doing which is I I'm much more likely to track my macros to track my protein intake and my
25:53
heart rate and all the you know my reps and personal lifting and all that stuff that I am you know but if you look at my books
26:00
they're probably not up to the same level of snuff that they should be uh and so this is encouraging for me for me
26:06
to kind of do that yeah there there's I agree with you there's a large opportunity for most businesses to track
26:12
things better quick anecdote on this I'm helping a client sell their company right now and we're talking to
26:18
investment bankers one investment banker said that another client of theirs
26:23
presented when they asked for their financial statements they presented two reports cash in and cash out that's it
26:30
if this was a $50 million Company Five Z really all the owner cared about am I
26:36
making more money than I'm spending didn't care about anything else I mean right there and then there's an opportunity for so much improvement and
26:43
so much optimization if you just dig in deeper he was just happy that he was making more than he was spending yeah I
26:49
mean which is great if somebody wants to you know they'll assign a certain valuation of that but it would probably be a tenth of what he would have had had
26:55
he had actual reports yeah 100% show all that back to your question about the
27:00
book another great chapter that I love I um the term ABC in the business World refers refers to always be closing mean
27:07
meaning business in sales right always be closing new business I use the term ABC to always be closing your books I
27:15
wanted to make sure that our company was always ready for due diligence so me whether it would be a new banking
27:21
relationship a new partnership with a big player a new um investor a potential sale if you come up with the process to
27:29
have your books in tiptop shape at all times you're going to increase the perception that a a bank a partner or an
27:36
acquirer is going to have because they're gonna say wow these these guys are all buttoned up we ask for this stuff which usually takes you know two
27:43
months to get back they give it back to us in two days this is a buttoned up organization and and your CR your
27:49
credibility goes through the roof oh yeah yeah ironically it the on Monday I
27:55
had my first meeting with my new CPA slf fractional CFO guy he's like well here's
28:02
what it's going to cost you because we have to go back 27 months for the last two years and and clean up all your
28:08
books which is great like it's I mean it's I'm glad I'm finally taking those steps right but he he's the guy that I
28:14
would say hey I need this I need this information he's like well go to your dashboard and print out this report
28:20
you'll have it right and so that's something and it's not really that expensive even you know for a small
28:25
company like mine even for a bigger company it really isn't is it really isn't that that expensive for sure so
28:31
you're married I have I have an interesting question for you I've actually entered interviewed three
28:36
highlevel entrepreneurs this week including yourself and we talked about marriage one of the things with maxed
28:42
out man we talk about the man which is health and fitness and optimization all that marriage which is obvious and then
28:48
Mission which is some of what we're talking about Legacy how to build your business how to be profitable all that
28:54
the marriage aspect I found really interesting because when you if you described my wife and and these other
29:02
and this is where the question come in these other two gentlemen specifically their wives and my wives my wife are
29:09
almost the same in terms of like their makeup their background their fears their worries how they put up with us as
29:15
entrepreneurs and all that so I'm curious like where you fall into that range just for my own edification more than anything else yeah I mean my wife
29:22
had a career um um she had a career of of her own um you know we help we had help with our kids um from from
29:28
grandparents from nannies and all that so she definitely pursued a career of of her own and she was always just
29:34
incredibly supportive of my of my craziness yeah you know the these Sports take a lot of time and not only the
29:40
training but just you know getting to the venue getting to the race recoup for in especially like the mountain climbing
29:46
trips I mean those are a a month at a time wow she just has she's been super
29:51
super supportive of all all these Endeavors and um you know she she enjoys go I mean she goes to a lot of them with
29:58
with me so I Tred to pick venues which we can turn into many vacations yeah Iron Man is a Fant I hate to sound like
30:04
an Iron Man commercial but they have grown so much that they have erased three different races every weekend
30:11
someplace in the world wow you can literally you know throw a dart at to their entire venue list and pick a
30:18
incredible destination to race at and doesn't have doesn't need to be a full Iron Man it could be half Iron Man which
30:23
is a little bit easier still hard right and they have other races as well because it's turned into this ginormous
30:29
racing um um or organization you know and then then turn these races into like
30:34
little mini vacations for the family which I did which made it a lot easier for them to swallow yeah I'm sure is is
30:41
she an athlete as well does she work out with you and kind of do shorter runs and that kind of thing I got her to do as
30:46
long there was a Philly 10 Mile it was one of the races in Philadelphia um that was the furthest I got her to go and she
30:52
was one of these one andone I've done it my wife my wife is
30:57
super into Wonder Woman so they have these one these DC Comics like fun runs almost okay and so she keeps signing us
31:04
up for 10ks which I'm totally fine with so 10K is I mean dude I could just go do it right now it's it's easy if if you're
31:10
in any kind of shape at all doing a 10K is not that hard um but yeah she she keeps signing us up because she likes
31:16
the little medals that she gets so yeah it's off camera here but I
31:21
I've got a box of them I mean I've raced in probably you know 50 different events um at this point I mean I I love AV with
31:28
and that's my one that's from Kona right there oh very cool the big one and I I
31:33
love collecting them it's a great little you know Keepsake to remind you of the of the challenge you you overcame yeah
31:41
because that's a snapshot right like this is the snapshot because your memory and your mind is like when when you look
31:47
at that I'm sure you can Envision you know what looking at yourself from the outside what you felt during that time
31:55
hopefully forgotten a little bit of the pain like you like with child birth but yeah so yeah and um so if someone wanted
32:03
to get started kind of down this journey with with doing endurance Athletics like
32:08
take someone like me I've done a couple of marathons a bunch of Hales I've said okay I'm hanging up but maybe I would
32:16
want to do something that's a you know a little bit more challenging for myself I'm 51 probably you're you're kind of in
32:21
that same age range so that's no excuse clearly four no excuse yeah so there's no excuses there how do we like what's
32:28
your what's your recommendation for kind of starting down that road yeah it's really easy I mean if you want to go down the Tron Road it's it's definitely
32:35
I mean again this is coming from somebody that's done 17 full distance Iron Man so take it a little bit of grain of salt but it's not that hard to
32:42
get started I got my I got my both my daughters to do triathlons I got my older daughter to do two New York City
32:48
marathons with me and I got her to do a um half Iron Man so so she did it others
32:54
can do it pick a Sprint distance Tron there's one in every single not every
33:00
community in most communities I guarantee you anybody listening you probably don't need to drive more than
33:05
two to three hours to a race go to beginner tr.com find a local race in
33:11
your area Sprint distance the shortest one and then on that same site or on a
33:16
million other sites get a training plan a training plan will tell you exactly how much you need to swim bike and run
33:23
on a daily and weekly basis in order to prepare for for that event if you can
33:29
afford it please get a get a coach you know get somebody or at least a training buddy you know somebody that's ideally
33:35
has a little bit of experience under their belt this is an incredibly helpful Community even on beginner tr.com every
33:42
single year um they have these cohorts that form led by some an experienced
33:47
triathlete that just gives you know free advice um there's a million one Facebook
33:53
groups there's everybody just wants the community to flourish and to continue to grow so you'd be amazed at how helpful
34:00
the community is so yeah so my advice would be beginner triathlete.com and pick pick a short race check it out
34:07
cross that finish line and check see if you're one and done or whether you want to go further yeah and after that
34:13
there's an Olympic distance then after that there's a half iron then the full iron and and believe it or not there's
34:19
actually longer distances than full Iron Man I just did something called Ultram man last weekend which was the distances
34:26
are ridiculous so yeah that's um because it becomes like what's that next challenge right
34:33
you can only do so many of the same thing before you're like I need to challenge myself because this is it's not it never gets quote unquote easy
34:39
right but it's like I'm not really going beyond my abilities like if my ability
34:44
is to get through this and to keep getting faster or whatever it's not really you know that much of a challenge
34:49
right people want to push themselves and become faster which is great um my motto is not fast not last so I just want to
34:56
train enough it because I love the journey as much and I talk about this in my book as well a lot of times the
35:03
journey is just as important and just as much fun as the actual destination right and for me the Journey of training
35:10
eating right you know staying healthy and getting to that starting line is as fun as starting and then finishing the
35:17
actual race so I personally love the journey I don't do it to win and so to
35:23
further challenge myself instead of getting faster I just go longer yeah yeah because that's more sustainable and
35:29
I think really that's a great analogy for life or metaphor for life it's like the it's this is supposed to be fun and
35:35
you're supposed to enjoy it along the way I had one friend that I worked with back in the day and I remember him
35:42
telling me like I don't we don't spend absolutely any money we don't really do anything we because I'm plan and this he
35:48
was in his late 20s early 30s at the time because he was planning for
35:54
retirement okay right and I'm like dude what if you die at 45 and you literally
36:00
have done nothing with your life other than go to work and put money in the bank right that's just it's just as like
36:06
what a waste we don't know how long we have right that that's pretty sad you have to
36:11
live life along the way yeah for sure I want to ask you one question how should
36:17
men I I wrote this down I'm curious how you believe men should challenge themselves um in life business marriage
36:25
all of these things like because that's something you do right so like what is your recommendation for like what that looks
36:32
like and why men don't challenge themselves is probably more accurate of a question because that's something we
36:38
see in our space a lot it's like you know your biggest challenge is getting up to get more Doritos while you sit and
36:43
watch football all weekend right and so what is it that what is it that men
36:48
aren't doing and what should they be doing more of I mean I I think some people I don't know what percentage of
36:54
humanity are just happy with the status quo right they're happy with the job happy with the relationship happy with
36:59
whatever Hobbies they have or don't have and they're fine with that but there's just so much opportunity in this world
37:06
to do more that I'm just a huge proponent of you know finding something that's going to get you out of your
37:12
comfort zone that's another part of the book it's called Life True learning and life really begins at the edge of your
37:18
comfort zone it's just so super exciting to go and accomplish something you didn't think was possible before the
37:25
example I like to use is you know my wife not into mountaineering like I am but I got her to go onto a pretty
37:31
Advanced hike it was hard she we were both you know huffing and puffing we actually had tour guide because we
37:36
didn't know this Trail and we finally got to the top it took like an hour and a half two hours to get to the top of
37:42
this hill in Upstate New York and then she she saw we saw this incredible view of the Hudson River and all the foliage
37:50
and the sites were just and the the look on her face if I can just you know capture that and put put that into a
37:56
pill it was she was your Force like oh my God this is incredible so I translate that to a whole bunch of other things
38:03
people would be amazed in terms of like what they can possibly accomplish and how good it's going to make them feel
38:10
and um in the in the process of setting you know slightly larger goals for
38:15
yourself I think you become a better person and you encourage others to do the same and now all of a sudden you're
38:21
living in a community of folks or group of friends that are trying to establish you know bigger and better goals
38:28
for themselves and the the the results would be phenomenal so yeah because then it's like that stair step right you just
38:34
keep getting better and you have people in your world that that are challenging you and making it more
38:40
um like that that Euphoria right there's always this destination and there's only so many people that get to see some of
38:47
these things that that you know because we have we have a I'm in Montana so we have a ton of these hikes that lead to
38:55
Mountain Lakes at 6,000 7,000 feet above sea level and there's just you know
39:00
crystal clear water you can see down you know down 50 feet you know or whatever right to the bottom but it may take us
39:07
you know an hour and a half to get up there but the reward is that then we get to sit and enjoy you know being with
39:14
each other and enjoy being in nature and seeing something that people that can't make that hike or are unwilling to make
39:21
that hike literally will never see unless it's in a picture yeah yeah 100% 100% so again like begins at the end
39:28
edge of your comfort zone there's just so much cool things to do in this world and it doesn't need to be like crazy
39:33
physical like my crazy Endurance Sports or getting to the top of a mountain there's a lot of and many of them are
39:40
are free so yeah for sure yeah I love it I think that's a great place um to land
39:45
the plane tell me more like how we get to find how we find the book and I know it's been out you said for about a month
39:51
right is that month um I'm actually it succeeded All my expectations it hit number one the day launch and it's still
39:58
still in the top 10 on the Amazon bestseller list wow so it's called built to finish built to finish you can find
40:04
it on Amazon um you can also go to my website Stephen pivnik dcom I like to
40:09
blog about all my crazy Adventures on my crazy races so you can sign up for my blog at stepen
40:27
happy to do that if anybody needs an inspirational speaker up yeah that's great that's awesome and I'll put those
40:32
I'll put those in the show notes as well so hey man thanks so much for um for joining me and for like giving me giving
40:39
me some in Inspiration today because I you know I'm actually inspired to think more about it we'll see whether see if I
40:46
can see if I can get my ass off the couch you know I don't really sit on the couch but to get you know to go and challenge myself to do something along
40:52
those IND you can do a 10K you can do a Sprint chlon I'd like to hear I'm
40:57
definitely I'm going to look into it for sure all right man thanks thanks stepen have a good day take you if you're
41:03
looking to really maximize your life and become the man you were made to be head over to maxed out man.com and get your
41:11
journey started [Music] today