As The Leader Grows with Ken Joslin
Join Pastor-turned-entrepreneur Ken Joslin on "As The Leader Grows" - where faith meets entrepreneurial excellence. As the CEO of GROW STACK DRIVE and founder of CREATE, America's #1 Faith-based Entrepreneur Conference, Ken brings powerful insights from closing over $250 million in real estate deals and sharing stages with industry titans like John C. Maxwell, Ed Mylett, and Grant Cardone.
Through his transformative Core 5 approach - Faith, Health, Relationships, Business, and Finance - Ken shows entrepreneurs how to build a life of purpose and prosperity. Leading the exclusive GSD Elite Mastermind, he equips faith-driven leaders with the tools to build confidence, gain clarity, and create community while excelling in every crucial area of life.
Ready to start growing? Join our FREE GSD Community at growstackdrive.com/free and subscribe to the podcast to become the best version of yourself. Your journey to extraordinary growth starts here.
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As The Leader Grows with Ken Joslin
Josh Porter | The Power of Proximity
What happens when a dedicated medical professional decides to break away from corporate healthcare and create something transformative? In this compelling conversation with Josh Porter, we journey through the remarkable evolution of a physician assistant who turned his frustration with reactive medicine into a thriving hormone optimization business with five locations across the Southeast.
Josh candidly shares his humble beginnings—subletting space in a chiropractic office, working evenings and weekends while maintaining his corporate job, and making cold calls during lunch breaks. His story isn't just about business growth but encompasses profound personal transformation. Despite early financial constraints, Josh made the pivotal decision to hire Mandy Livingston, a move that catalyzed his company's expansion from $497,000 to nearly $2 million in revenue within a single year.
The conversation takes a powerful turn as Josh reveals how joining a faith-based entrepreneurial community forced him to confront deep-seated insecurities stemming from childhood experiences with his father. This emotional breakthrough proved essential to his development as a leader capable of scaling an organization while maintaining integrity in his relationships.
Perhaps most valuable is Josh's insight that "proximity is a cheat code"—the transformative power of surrounding yourself with mentors and peers who challenge you to think bigger. Within just two years, he expanded from one clinic to five locations, grew from 10 to 21 employees, and increased annual revenue to approximately $4 million. Yet through this impressive growth, Josh emphasizes that sustainable success requires both business acumen and personal growth across all dimensions of life.
Whether you're just starting your entrepreneurial journey or looking to scale an existing business, Josh's story offers practical wisdom on embracing process, investing in relationships, and building a purpose-driven organization. Connect with us monthly in Atlanta at our proximity gatherings and discover how the right community can accelerate your path to meaningful success. growstackdrive.com/proximity
Welcome to the ATLG podcast I am your host Ken Joslin, former pastor turned coach & host of CREATE, the #1 Faith-based Entrepreneur conference in America. My mission is to help faith-based entrepreneurs become the best version of themselves by growing in our Core 5: Faith, Health, Relationships, Business & Finances. You can get more information as well as join our FREE Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/676347099851525
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of as the Leader Grows. I'm sitting here with my good friend, josh Porter. Guys, you're going to get to hear a lot about transformation, what's happened in his life in literally each of our core five areas faith, health, relationship, business and finances. So, dude, why don't you take just a minute and say hi to our audience right there and introduce yourself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah, Josh Porter. I'm a physician assistant and own some hormone clinics in the Southeast. Got connected to these guys about a year ago, a little over a year ago, and just been transformational in my journey as a husband, as a father, as a business owner, as a leader, just as a difference maker right, and just getting connected to these guys has been huge, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this year, at Create, about five or six weeks ago, we gave away a few awards throughout the two and a half days and you got the GSD Assassin because we all know that's Nate's favorite word assassin Dude. It was this badass samurai sword that we gave you because of what we've seen God do in your life, dude, in your business, in your home and everything Run through with our audience. Because I want us to spend some time today talking about process and embracing the journey, because we all, as entrepreneurs well, if I could only get there, if I can only get to 1200 monthly clients, right, I remember when you said that number was like there's no way. And now you're where 1750. 1750. It's like. But anyway, talk about your, just your locations, how the franchise locations have grown, your team, all of those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so I've been. I've been in medicine for about 15 years and most of that time was was really built around corporate health care, right. So I was working in large hospital settings and about four years ago I really kind of just I had an experience working in the emergency department where I just thought, you know what like this is not how I want to continue practicing medicine. I was so tired of reactive medicine Not that there's anything wrong with, you know, for people who are in that field, but for me I just knew that there was something different, that was inside of me to have conversations with people 20 years before they found themselves in those situations. And so, you know, I had connected with somebody that was already doing some hormone clinics, and so I kind of joined up with them and opened my first location in Chattanooga, tennessee.
Speaker 2:So that's where I'm from and you know I've got five kids, and so any type of, you know, joint venture and you're, you know this entrepreneurship at middle age with five kids is kind of like man, what are you doing? But I really just sensed God calling me to it to be honest with you, and so I take this journey. I sublease space out of a chiropractic office for $1,500 a month and the guy was super gracious man. He'd been in business for a long time and he goes. Hey, I don't want you to sign a long-term contract because I think you're on to something. He goes. I want you to pay me month to month because you're going to be out of here before you know it.
Speaker 2:And I was like I didn't see it, and so I hired a nurse and I worked full time still in corporate health care to pay the bills, and then I would see patients in the evenings, from 6 to 8 on the weekdays, and then on Saturdays I'd see patients 8 to 12. And I did that for about four months and there weren't that many patients coming through the 12. And I did that for about four months, um, and there weren't that many patients come through the door. And so, uh, when I did have time, did you have a number, josh?
Speaker 1:you wanted to get to work in that part-time from like six to eight. You have a number you wanted to get to to go.
Speaker 2:When I get here, I'm going to go full time I didn't, man, it was a lot more organic. At that point I had, I had mortgaged my house and so that the number was I need to pay that payment, I need to figure, find a way to kind of make this work. And so I just kind of saw the debt that I was, you know, accumulating and and and so started in that process. And when I had time because I did have time at lunch and, you know, with my other job I'd make phone calls and, hey, we just want to introduce myself to you and and I, you know so. So just the knocking on doors, the, the, the calling on people, trying to introduce myself, and God just led me down a path of introducing me to people that I would never have known otherwise.
Speaker 2:And and those relationships, what I always tell people is one of the things people ask me like Josh, how did you take a clinic and grow it so quickly? I feel honored that I was able to stand on the shoulders of some giants in my life who had built that credibility and because I had made the relationships with them, all of a sudden their credibility became my credibility and I'm super appreciative of that. But after about four months of kind of grinding. Somebody came to me and, where our current location is in Chattanooga, somebody came to me and said, hey, we really think this would be a good partnership, would you consider? And I'm sitting here thinking I've only been in business for a few months, what's that look like? You know, they're like this guy.
Speaker 2:This is a joke, you know he's already moving and dude, when I took that step, we started to double in our patient volume from month to month, and so it quickly became one of those things where I was looking on and thinking like, oh my gosh, like this is actually going to work. And this is actually a really cool story for people who are kind of stuck. So I was working in corporate healthcare. I was a kind of a grinder. I always had high volume. I was able to see a lot of patients and you know which, in a hospital setting, is really good for RVUs and volume right.
Speaker 2:Well, I knew that I kind of had them in a situation where I actually had some leverage, because to replace me was not going to be very easy. And so so I went to the staff and I said, hey, listen, I've done this. I've you know, I've got this. You know this clinic that's going well. I'm going to need to take some time to where I'm going to start separating and do a little part-time with them and I just want to see, you know, and I really was not looking for, hey, you know, financially I assume, all right, here's three days that you know, we'll pay you for that three days. And they came back and said listen, you see so many patients and you've been so good to us for the past five years. We're going to keep paying you a full salary. This is a huge hospital and you don't get those kind of things. I mean, that's a God thing, right?
Speaker 1:Well, that's a testament to you and your work ethic and how much you gave to that company I love. The scripture says is everything you do work as unto the Lord, Like those people who own that hospital or sign your check. Those aren't your provider. We talked about it on call this morning. Yeah, God's your provider and you did that with a high level of excellence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so that that, uh, that brought us to about six, seven months into the clinic being open and, um so, november. So I opened in January of 2022, November of 2022, I went full time and that went to like I think this is going to work and you started that whole thing.
Speaker 1:I remember you sharing this story with us and we'll get more into your story about how much you've grown over the past year. But you started with a goal of $1,200 monthly.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So at some point early on I knew what I didn't know, and that was I knew how to take care of people. I'm fairly, you know, feel very adequate in my skills as a provider. Business was new right, and so that's why I'd kind of linked on to a franchise, because I needed systems and I knew I needed somebody to kind of help me. And so there was a local business coach, robert Barber, who still does some stuff. He does a lot more corporate things now, but he was just getting started. He would meet with me. So I signed up with him $2,500, I think, for six sessions. I thought, man, this is crazy, I'm spending a lot of money.
Speaker 1:If I'd only known that $2,500 doesn't seem that much now, yeah, it doesn't now.
Speaker 2:But back then, man, it was like whew, this is a big investment. And so we went through. He helped me at that time establish some light core values. But I'll never forget, man, he said, where do you want to be in three years? And I'm like I don't know.
Speaker 2:So he helped me kind of flesh that out and just the idea of the BHAG. You've got to have these big aud goals. And so I would throw out a number and he'd be like that's too small. And I throw it out and he's like dude, stop, like you've got to, you've got to believe in yourself. And so I said, well, there's this, there's this one clinic that had been open about a year ahead of me and and I said, everybody in the organization said you know, don't compare yourself to that clinic because they're they're kind of an outlier, they're growing at such a rate. And I said I want to beat them. And he said, well, what's that going to look like? And I said, 1200 patients in three years. He said, all right, what's that take? And then he just helped me break it down so that, what you know, we needed 40 net patients per month. We need, you know, I mean out. So you do that.
Speaker 1:You start in your first year, or so goes well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I was, I was able to go full time and you know so. So first year went well. I think we. I think we brought in 497,000 in revenue. We'd linked, we'd made some really, really good strategic partners in the community. That was something that I was really vested in at that point. And then again I started to think, man, I'm getting so busy, right, you wear a lot of hats, right. I mean we're sitting here doing some cameras and stuff this morning.
Speaker 1:So, as an owner, you do so many different hats and so.
Speaker 2:I'm doing the partnerships, I'm having the meetings in the evenings, I'm doing payroll, I'm doing the partnerships, I'm having the meetings in the evenings, I'm doing payroll, I'm doing the QuickBooks, I'm seeing patients. So I've got all these things going on and I'm like where has God put me, where has God gifted me to make the greatest impact? And so I knew it was in dealing with people, with patients. So I've got a patient who had been with me for about a year, so this is January, february of 23. Who'd been with me for about a year. And this is so, this is January, february of 23.
Speaker 2:And she sends me this text one day and said hey, happy one year anniversary with me and my husband. I can't believe you haven't kicked us out. And she and she's, so she exclamation point. And then she goes dot, dot, dot. If you ever want to hire me, let me know. And honestly, I could not afford her. I mean it was one of those things where, ken, I'm like golly, like I would love to hire you, but I cannot afford a person who does not generate revenue. Right, it was in my head. I mean, she's you know, and so. But I also thought like this is my one opportunity for somebody like her, where she's a difference maker, and if I don't take a chance and believe in myself, I'm going to regret it. So I immediately called her and I said hey, how serious are you? What's the least you could take?
Speaker 1:Isn't it funny? The language we use. What's the least I can get for.
Speaker 2:You know, and I said I don't know that, you know it's like you're. I said I just want you to know what you're going to. If you're going to commit to working with me and you're going to trust me, like it's going to mean a lot and the only thing I can promise you is where you start is not where you're going to finish. She, her name, is Mandy Livingston. She started as my office manager, then became a general manager, then became regional manager. Now she's VP of clinical operations and she does pretty well financially. But she's a difference maker, right, and she's been with me, you know, from almost the very beginning. So it was learning. I had to put people around me who could support me, who could take those tasks, and there's, you know, we could go on and on. I could tell you, you know, several of those kinds of situations large sustain with another provider where it's just like I started to have to real quick learn that I was going to have to learn how to lead people, what made you hire Mandy?
Speaker 1:Everything in you is screaming I can't afford this. I don't have enough money. Yeah, this is too big of a risk. What was the, what was the deciding factor that made you pull the trigger on that?
Speaker 2:I think I really saw that what we were doing was making an impact and I really believed in it. I just believed that we had the ability. If we could just continue to keep that momentum going, that people's lives would be impacted.
Speaker 1:So good.
Speaker 2:And so she was a key piece in that, because I also saw I'm going to get in the way right If I don't figure out ways to hand that stuff off where that impact can happen. I'm going to limit it because I'm going to get stuck in all these other things that I really don't need to be doing.
Speaker 1:I love that. So you hired Mandy in 03, I mean 23, you rock along. For the next year, some growth going on, 300% growth.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, pretty good, hire. I'd say Again, along with several other people, we went from $497,000 that year to almost $2 million that second year. And then her and Laura kind of came up with like, what they've learned is like I'm pretty quick and I've got ideas Right, and so, you know, by the time we get settled I'm like, hey, we should open another one, you know. And they're like are you kidding me? That's a visionary.
Speaker 1:It is man.
Speaker 2:And so so, so November of 2023. So we'd been open for about a year and a half. We opened our second location in Chattanooga and again, even my wife was a little bit like I don't know. Man, like you know, are you sure this is, like you sure Chattanooga really needs to to these places? And I just believed in it and and so you know the the, the law of attraction is something that I'm I really see, if you build something that people are attracted to, even from my staff I mean my staff in Chattanooga is, I wouldn't trade a single person when people ask me those. I think Cole Taylor asked that question. Like you know, rank yourself. Would you hire everybody on your team In Chattanooga? Like I'd rehire them a thousand times over? They're just the right people because they're attracted to what we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, so you do that. 2024 rolls around. Mandy comes and shows you a hey, I'm going to buy you a ticket to this conference called create Atlanta. Yeah, walk me through that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some, some Joker was doing some Facebook ads, hey are you a faith-based entrepreneur in the Atlanta area?
Speaker 1:Hey, my name is faith-based entrepreneur in the Atlanta area. Hey, my name's Ken and I host Create, the number one faith-based entrepreneur conference. Some of you guys are like oh, I've heard that before, I've seen that ad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, mandy. So again I'm in that phase of like. I know I feel the limitations. I know I've got people looking to me. Now it's not just my family that I'm providing for, but I've got all these other families that are looking for. You know, this thing needs to stay sustainable.
Speaker 2:And so Mandy finds Ken Jocelyn at Create and I think she knew number one it aligned with who I am, just from a faith-based standpoint. Secondly, it was close I mean, it's a couple hours away and so she sends me, you know, a screenshot. And so I go on the website and I sign up for the executive. So I wasn't ready to do CEO at the time. I was like I don't want to sit in the back, I'm going to sit right in the middle. And so I show up on a. Did it start Thursday night? Thursday night, yeah. So Thursday night I show up in Scrubs. I worked all day, show up in Scrubs, kind of sit there, end up meeting a couple different people and yeah, man, man, I'm not kidding, I would say by within 30 minutes of being in that room I knew like these are my people, I was in the right room.
Speaker 1:That's good, and so you set through that weekend. We gave people the opportunity to journey with us for the next year, and for you that was a $50,000 commitment. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Uh, well that you know I talked about this at create this year. Uh, cause a lot of people and you're very intentional about connecting with people before they make that commitment. I'd never talked to you, I'd never emailed you, I'd never called you. I just saw who you are in that stage is who you are sitting here, right. So it doesn't take long that transparency for people. I can read people pretty well and so I realized real quick of like man, this, this is somebody that I want in my life.
Speaker 2:And Nate wasn't even a part of it back then at that time. So so, yeah, I, I signed, osbert was the guy that I connected with and you know I'm like, hey, man, I really just think I'm going to go all in. And he's like. You know, he's like, are you serious? He played it cool, and and and so then you know, even so, yeah, I signed up for that, didn't really. And then you have kind of buyer's remorse of like what did I just do? And and it wasn't probably, to be honest with you, it really probably wasn't until we went to Puerto Rico where I really saw, like this is, this, is why I'm supposed to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so you know, for those of you guys that don't know, in our corner, which is what we used to call our mastermind, um, our GSD corner is part of our ecosystem, our community circle corner, we do four events We've got create and then each quarter we do a mastermind and you were able to be a part of all three of those masterminds. You were able to be a part of all three of those masterminds. Last year, Puerto Rico was the, was the big one. Walk us through, because you know you've heard me say this a lot If your business is at the point where you need one idea or one relationship and to take you to the next level, the corner is for you. Like that mastermind, that 5k a month investment will change your life If you'll dive in and do the, if you'll be a part of and be active in everything that we're doing and connect relationally with the people that we have in the room. But walk our, walk the audience through your aha moment in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, well, I had had some uh, some some kind of frustrations within the corporate setting and uh, and I love these guys. I mean, you know they've been super faithful. I was on the phone with them this week but at that point I just my mindset was kind of I was a little frustrated and they knew it. And so, you know, troy had, you know, was just kind of leading and I would say this on the mastermind part for me, connecting with some people who you just realize real quick, like man, I've not done.
Speaker 1:I've got a seat at the table with that guy.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, right um and so you just yeah, you get put in these rooms.
Speaker 2:You say proximity is a cheat code, and you, like, you're in these rooms and for the first time I'm like, oh my gosh, I understand what he said, what he means when he says proximity is a cheat code.
Speaker 2:Because I'm sitting here talking to t Hoffman and Troy Hoffman's pulling out of me.
Speaker 2:You know what Josh Like, why don't you, why don't you consider buying the whole whole sinking thing once you buy the whole corporation, you know, and and again, it's just the mindset to me was like I was thinking so small, right, and so that really had kind of started to propel me of like, well, ok, if I can, if I can do something in Chattanooga, why can't I start to do it elsewhere?
Speaker 2:And so that conversation started, you know me down a path of like, well, I may not buy the whole corporation at this point, but what if? What if I really kind of look at how do I scale my impact in the Southeast, and so that's kind of where I've gone with that. But yeah, it was just Puerto Rico was a big one for me just to be in the room, I think, with people who like a Troy Hoffman, but also just, you know, josh Smith and guys who and gals who are using their impact from a from a business standpoint to really advance the kingdom. You know, and you start realizing, like this like-mindedness of man, these people really want to make a difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that was one of the biggest. That was one of my favorite memories from any of our masterminds We've had some amazing ones was when Troy asked you that question that day and you said I want to buy the whole thing. Yeah, and he just stood up. He goes did y'all feel the energy shift in the room? I'm like I did, like you. Literally it was palpable. Yeah, you could feel the energy shift in the room. So puerto rico, aha moment. Like you're, like, I'm not, I'm not thinking big enough. Yeah, we go from there to atlanta this past summer for that mastermind. What was the? What was your biggest moment?
Speaker 2:I'll say real quick about puerto rico, because we were talking about this earlier before we recorded. My wife and I have been married for 21 years and we have five kids. She's not overly involved in the business, right, and so sometimes my ideas, with the vision of the business and where we're going to go, she's kind of like how did you get to 100 miles an hour? And I'm like like I've been thinking about this for three months, right, she just doesn't get to see it, she's not, she doesn't get to process it with me. Um, and I just I say this because the importance of having her in that room in puerto rico, because she was in there at that moment when she was like, oh my gosh, like this is, this is the mindset that he has, and she, she was supportive, right. So I think for her it wasn't just like you go, it was more like she felt part of it, and that's something that we've struggled with.
Speaker 1:I mentioned right after that. Yeah, you did, Guys. This is the importance. I believe. What I said to the group that day was could you imagine You're already at $1.9 million. You're making great money, your family's great. Could you imagine if she didn't come and you came home back to Chattanooga from from the resort in Puerto Rico and you go hey, baby, we're going to buy the whole company? She would look at you, dude, like you've lost your mind. Yeah, Like literally. But because she was in the room. Yeah, there was that moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So Atlanta, um, she was in the room. Yeah, there was that moment. Yeah, you guys could have. Yeah. So atlanta, um went from mindset with the business and uh, you know, to now, like god's, like, well, how about we work on you? Uh, so you know, my, my takeaway in atlanta was my wife couldn't go. So I took my son, uh, so he's 16 going, he's 17 now and uh doesn't want to go college, wants to be an entrepreneur. And so you graciously said, dude, just bring him.
Speaker 2:So Jake Hamilton is there, led worship for us, and then he has this you know men's group where we just kind of have a breakout session. And I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I remember him saying you know, kind of write down some insecurities, some things that you struggle with as a man. And so I'm, you know, sitting there just writing stuff down, and he goes, somebody share, and I'm not afraid to talk, but like in those moments that's not generally, like I'm going to wait for somebody else to say something, you know. And again I just felt like, just like God was like no, like you need to share something. So I said I'll do it. You need to share something. So I said I'll do it Again. In hindsight I'm like man, that was a bad decision, I'm just kidding. So Jake says all right, tell me what it was. And I said I am not enough. I mean, it was bro. It was like as soon as he asked me to say something, I knew what that insecurity was in me. And so he goes all right, when was the first time you felt that?
Speaker 2:And so when I was eight years old, my parents divorced, when I was and my dad really just was kind of intermittent in my life, right, you know, this is back before. Cell phones supposed to pick me up for a weekend never show up. I'd go back in the house, call my dad on the landline, leave messages. You know 15 to 20 voicemails never show up, right. So we had this kind of back and forth relationship for about four years where I was looking for my father to be present and then at age 12, I had stayed the weekend with him. I had had, you know, he and I had kind of gotten a little tiff Takes me home Sunday night and Monday morning I'm at basketball practice and my mom and my brother come to pick me up and and I get in the car and they're like, hey, we've got to tell you something. I'm like, okay, what's that? And they're like your dad was killed in a car accident.
Speaker 2:So you've got the pain of losing your father. But then you've also got the pain of like man. I really failed him the last moments of our relationship here on on earth. I was, I was a disappointment, right, and he let it be known that. And there was no way to walk through that and say, hey, like I'm sorry, dad, you know. And so I just lived with this in me for years of like man. I'm just not enough, I'll never live up. I used it as fuel.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know that's what we do as high performing entrepreneurs. We take that thing and we're like oh hell, no, watch me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I did it in baseball. I was not the most talented, but I remember I got an award in high school senior, I got the most valuable player award and I'll never forget and it's probably one of the most honorable things somebody ever said about me my coach, who really had become kind of a father figure. He said I'm going to give this award to somebody who's not the most talented, not the most gifted, but I've never seen somebody work as hard. So it puts something in me of like dude, like that's, all you got to do is just grind, you know. So, anyway, so fast forward.
Speaker 2:So here I am as a dad, right, and the very thing, ken, that I had struggled with, that I, that I am not enough, was the very thing I wanted more than anything for my kids.
Speaker 2:That never experienced, right. And yet my jake turns to my 16 year old and says, hey, like you know, my 16 year old's you know crying and um, he's like you know, and and one of the things he said was like I had no idea, like my dad's never really conveyed that hurt, but the struggle that my son has is that he's not enough, right, right. And it was this same thing, this perpetual cycle of, like, the very intentional aspect of the thing that I had held onto because I had never let it go and I never dealt with it. So, yeah, that that had nothing to do with the business, right I mean, but it it had everything to do with the business because all of a sudden I realized how I, how the importance of me dealing with my stuff was going to be with leading other people, leading my family, you know, and uh, and then you know, being a business owner and so. So that was a monumental moment for me, man.
Speaker 1:So that's why we you know we talk a lot about our core five. For those of you guys maybe listening to this for the very first time Faith, health, relationship, business and finances. And it's funny, the majority, the vast majority of people, when they show up at Create or Mastermind, they're looking for a business trick or a transferable principle to deal with their finances, and God usually rewinds them all the way back to let me deal with this. And for you, puerto Rico BHAG Boom light bulb, bhag, boom Light bulb moment, holy cow. July in Atlanta for our mastermind was god damn. That's again one of my favorite moments of any of the masterminds you and then the next guy that Jake worked with that day. It was phenomenal, yeah, so we go from there and we go to Sundance, yeah, and we're in a cabin full of mostly guys. Yeah, yeah, you knuckleheads stayed up to 4 am every morning. Talk to me about that. What was your?
Speaker 2:biggest takeaway from Sundance.
Speaker 2:That was a unique mastermind because of the intimacy of it. Right, you're literally staying in a cabin with all these dudes and you feel like you're back in college or high school, right. And so me and Todd and Ricky and Nate just kind of just talking. So July was Atlanta, is that right? So from July to November, august, august, yeah, so August to November.
Speaker 2:So in that time now we're know we're opening more clinics, so we were starting that whole process and I realized my marriage is really suffering and again, just, I was not bringing my wife along, I was on this journey and she's kind of like, hey, like, have you, you remember me Right? Do you prioritize me? Who's the most important thing? Kind of like, hey, like, have you, you remember me right? Do you prioritize me? Who's the most important thing? And so Sundance was a pretty rough, raw spot for me too in my relationship with my wife and one of the things that I appreciated and when I say that, I even say it with hesitation because I know the pain and the hurt that so many guys have gone through and gals again who've gone through the pain of divorce and separation and the heartache, right. But one of the reasons that I really appreciate the group is, I think, of guys like yourself or nate, who have used that pain to pour into other people. So instead of somebody saying hey, like, dude, like, if she's not with you, go find somebody else, right, instead I've got people who are crying at a kitchen table at three in the morning, thinking like, let's pray, you know, like, and so. So it was just the power of having people in my life who are like, no, no, no, no, like, we're gonna do, you're gonna do this the right way, you're gonna succeed, you're gonna grow a successful business, but but your family is going to thrive and so out of that.
Speaker 2:So Eric Weir was there. So you talk about relationships. You know Troy's been a huge impact in my life. Eric was there, I was sharing a little bit with Eric and Eric goes, hey, man, totally random, but we're going to go shoot some guns in a few weeks and I think this would be really good for you. And it was just a smaller group. So I went to his house, his estate in South Carolina, with you and a few other guys and we shot some guns. And, again, just the ability to have those mentors in my life who love me, who pour into me One of my favorite things about South Carolina I'll share real quick. Troy Hoffman and I had to fly back a day early, so he's got a rental car and so I'm riding with him and it's about an hour and a half drive to the airport and we get a little late start. Traffic's kind of bad. Troy is running a little bit late, but if you know Troy, that's kind of the way he runs.
Speaker 1:He's always running late.
Speaker 2:And I'm thinking this guy is calm.
Speaker 1:We love you. Troy Hoffman. Yeah, this guy's calm as a cucumber.
Speaker 2:We're going about 100 miles an hour. We've been in and out of traffic, but he's not gripping the steering wheel tight, but the entire hour and a half, dude, the only thing that Troy talked about was me and my business. What could we do? How could you frame this? How could you strategize this? What do you need to do? What's your rate limit? I mean, like I'm telling you, if he asked me one question, he asked me a hundred questions on how to improve what we were doing. Because he cares right.
Speaker 2:Troy gets nothing out of that, you know, but yet he gets everything right. But it's just the kind of people in the room that you're hanging out with in this group is that I'll just. We literally pull up to the airport. He goes. I don't have time to drop this car off, I'm going to need you to do it. He jumps out and I pull, I park his, his rental car for him because he was so, so late, Right, so it was just. It's just. Having those kinds of people in my life who have just poured into me over the past year has been pretty incredible.
Speaker 1:So create. You. Go from create last year to create this year. We bring you up on stage, give you that award.
Speaker 1:I fumbled through reading your letter, through my tears as it was, because, really, dude you're I mean you're the poster child for what we want to do. Like your life and what you've done in your family is like if I could say this is what I want to do in the life of every faith-based entrepreneur in America, it would be exactly what you've went through. And what I love about your journey is it's not perfect. Like, literally, you're sitting, you come in today, we're downstairs, I'm eating breakfast and we're having a conversation about marriage. Staff like what does life look like?
Speaker 1:And the first couple of questions I asked you today was how you and mama doing. When's the last time you've been out on a date? When's the last time you've been on vacation together? Um, it's just walking through that. So what I want people to see in this is it's a process, man. It's like every time you put yourself in my planner, my quote get in rooms with people who think bigger than you do. That planner is on the bottom right-hand side of my journal. That quote is bottom right-hand side of my planner. Every day I see that and you've literally said dude, I'm going to put myself in the rooms with the people that I need to be in.
Speaker 2:So in the last year, clinic has went from 10 to yeah, we've gone from two locations to five and last year our gross revenue was right at $4 million, which was still mostly around two clinics at that point. So that really, the three that we've launched in the past 90 days are fairly obviously. Three clinics in 90 days.
Speaker 1:How smart is that? How much do you recommend other people pull it off? I don't, yeah.
Speaker 2:What I told you this morning. Yesterday at church, my pastor made a comment that leadership is those. In order to be trusted, you have to be tested. And yeah, tested would be a way to define it right Just going through the trials and growing. And yeah, it's a never-ending process.
Speaker 1:So two locations to five, 10 employees to 21,. 1.9 million to 3.8 to almost $4 million in revenue in a year doubled. What would you say to an entrepreneur who's out there doing this by themselves?
Speaker 2:I think it's intimidating either way, right, I think it's intimidating to be by yourself and to be isolated. But you know, they say, if you don't know what, you don't know. And I think sometimes when we're in a situation like that, you think you're on an Island, you're by yourself, you're, you're grinding, you're, you know, just you pull your bootstraps up and you just get it done, um, and and you can, you can go that way it's going to. It's hard enough, in my opinion, with the people I've gotten my life to pour into me, uh, that the people I've gotten my life to pour into me, uh that now that I've experienced that, I'm like there's no way that I'd want to go back to that. But you could, um, because the, so that's that's one area, because I think sometimes, uh, people look and think, man, it's just too much, it's too much of an investment, right, I, I, I told you when I signed up the first time I got to meet with you I'm like no-transcript, and so I think you've got to believe in yourself and not try to go at it alone. But I will tell you this it will be the biggest waste of your money if you spend it and aren't willing to invest.
Speaker 2:Don't put the effort in. You've got to put in the effort, man. You've got to raise your hand. You know there's been many times. I called you yesterday about something. I've called Nate at 10 o'clock at night and you know, weeping about something completely not business related. I'm calling Ricky today. You know Eric Weir called me last week Like You've got to be willing to put in that effort to get those relationships, because it's not all about what does Ken Jocelyn do for me. You say great leaders want something for people, not from people, and that's something that resonates with me. It's very much true to who I am. So it's easy in some ways where I'm like I want to know how Ken's doing too. I want to know how Nate's doing. I want to know how Nate's doing, you know. And so that part is where the difference lies, in in what you're going to get out of it, how special is the community that we've.
Speaker 1:We've because we built this together. It's not just me and me. You've been with us now for over a year.
Speaker 2:I mean, I would say it's pretty special and, you know, I think it's a privilege, I think it's very unique. You know, I don't think I've done business long enough now to where I think it's very, very, very unique to find people who really see their calling from a business standpoint to actually be something that's impacting the kingdom. I think we get greedy, I think we get prideful, I think we love power, we love influence, and those are all things that I struggle with on a day-to-day basis. Uh, but I think the core of who GSD is when it comes back to why are we like, why are we doing what we're doing?
Speaker 2:You know, when you meet Iza right, and you think you know, I mean my family supports her we want to go out and we want to go over there, uh, to Kenya, and like you meet these people, like this is who we're about, this is what we, this is the mission that we're on. You just, yeah, I mean I again from a, from a special standpoint. I don't know that there's another my, you know there's definitely not another mastermind that does what you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good, and Iza for those of you guys that don't know started and founded OV Children's Hospital in Kenya. Also, I met her through Troy Hoffman and when I met her, probably nine, ten months ago, she was a mess. Her funding was bad. She had been stripped of funding from one of the organizations that was funding her. Troy said, dude, she needs help. And I said just get her to Atlanta. We got her to Atlanta. We've raised since July, july for her about $120,000 already, year to date.
Speaker 1:It's which is insane. And I told Troy I said did you put? And she is our, it's a give back, she's our man. This is. We're passionate at GSD about helping her fund this dream and this vision. And her daughter just got the cochlear implants last week. She's doing great hearing for the first time in her life. Yeah, it's just, it's an amazing, amazing part. Dude, I just want to say thanks, thank you for believing in us, dude, thank you for putting in the work, thank you for showing up. I mean, listen, half the stuff, guys, if you're a faith-based entrepreneur, is getting in the right rooms with people and just show up, just get there and give it everything that you've got and just let God do what he needs to do.
Speaker 2:Well said. Yeah, dude Any last thoughts for our audience there. No, I'd just say thank you for all you do and for the effort you put in day in and day out and I really do appreciate who you are in my life and just the friendship we got.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you, bro, and we didn't even get to talk about my testosterone levels which it went from two 40 to about a thousand in a year.
Speaker 1:So optimize you guys. Josh Porter Um, he's got five locations homeowner replacement therapy, homeowner replacement therapy, all your peptide stuff Josh helps me with, and then all of your biohacking stuff, if you're listening to this. Also, we have made a commitment to show up in Atlanta and for faith-based entrepreneurs in Atlanta. The third Friday of every month we're showing up. We're going to be at the Live Church headquarters in Brookhaven, atlanta I was trying to think of the thing in Brookhaven, just outside of Buckhead. We're going to be at their headquarters the third Friday. So growstackdrivecom forward slash proximity. If you're a member, if you're in our ecosystem community circle corner, you get a free ticket. If you're in the corner like Josh, you get five. You can bring five people. We've got an unbelievable four hour day. So the third Friday of every month, 10 am to 2 pm, we'll meet down there. We'll have well over 100 faith-based entrepreneurs. We'll do a little worship in there. We're going to hit our core five areas faith, health, relationship, business and finances.
Speaker 1:And guys, it's not just talking heads, it literally is. Let's talk about this subject. I've got amazing people coming in to speak to our group over this next year. We'll speak for about 20 minutes, and then it's 10 to 15 minutes of table work. Like the people at your table, you're tackling that issue in your business, so we're going to give you time to be able to connect with people doing it at another level. That's the one thing I love. What you said earlier is just getting around people that are doing things. You realize really quick, man, I'm not doing much. It's not just I'm not doing much, but when you get around people it's like oh, I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 2:But you think you know, you think you know a hundred thousand dollar loan or line of credits, like you know, mortgage in your house and again at that moment it was huge. And then you go and you get in these rooms and you're, like you know, you hear the Eric Weir stories and you're like, oh my gosh, like you did what you raised $38 million in six weeks. Yeah, you know, and you're like my gosh and I lost sleep over that $100,000. Yeah, so it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, guys, listen. Thank you for joining us on another episode of as the Leader Grows. Listen, two things we've got to be able to add value to you. Josh mentioned it earlier Great leaders want something for people, not from people. Grow want something for people, not from people. Growstackdrivecom forward slash free. Growstackdrivecom forward slash free gives you access into our free community. All of our content, all of our create conferences are on there. Our GSD core Academy courses on mindset strategy, leadership development are on there, and you can also go to growstackdrivecom forward slash proximity.
Speaker 1:That's our monthly leadership gathering that we're doing in Atlanta and, guys, when I say the room is stacked, the room is freaking stacked. Josh will be there this time. He's actually going to be sharing on hormone replacement therapy and what he does on the health side. It's going to be an amazing day. We're actually going to crash your Roswell location of Optimize U Friday afternoon. So listen, growstackdrivecom forward slash proximity. Grab your seat. It's 47 bucks, guys, four hours. We'll have a little Chick-fil-A in the morning and you'll be surrounded by some amazing, amazing entrepreneurs. Bring your team, show up, get in the room with people who think bigger than you do. We'll see you next time on as the Leader Grows.