00:00:00 - Franco Lofranco
Yeah, life is short. I'm 54 years old now. Life is short, and here's what I've learned. Just go after it. Make it happen. All the things that we failed in in the past, don't worry about that. Those are great building blocks for what you want to achieve today. Those are your stepping stones to your success, and failure is a way to learn how to make your self successful.

00:00:26 - Jerry Dugan
Do you feel like you're stuck in a rut in life or in a dead end job with no progression? I'm Jerry Dugan, and welcome to Beyond The Rut, the podcast that offers you the motivation, inspiration, and practical tools to help you build a life worth living. My show is here to help you break free from your limitations and find a path to success. Join me as I share encouraging stories and actionable advice on how to get out of your rut in life and create a vision for your future. Life is just too short to live stuck in a rut. Here we go. Hey, rudder nation. This is your host Jerry Dugan, and our special guest for this episode is Franco LoFranco, and we're going to learn some neat things about him, like he's an actual knight in a country called Italy. You may have heard of it, but that's not the main reason why we have him on the show. We're going to be talking about freedom. Ultimately, when you're living beyond the rut, you're living a life of freedom time, freedom income, freedom time to just go hang out with your family when you want, how you want, all those things. So how do you find success in your career, your business, and enjoy the life part of life? So that's what we're talking about. What are the lessons we can learn from entrepreneurship? Whether or not you work in corporate America or you work in a business? And then also, how can you and what should you look for if you decide you want to become an entrepreneur and find that beyond the rut? Freedom. So sit back, relax, grab a notebook and a pen. Here we go. All right, I'm here with Caviar. Franco, how are you doing?

00:02:04 - Franco Lofranco
Jerry, how are you? I'm excited to be here. I'm a fan of yours, and it's an honor and privilege to be with on here today.

00:02:10 - Jerry Dugan
Awesome. And just so that we know, I was a baseball player, so I'm the big fan of really obscure stats and milestones. And so the cool thing about you is that you were officially the first knight I have had on this show.

00:02:28 - Franco Lofranco
Wow. Well, it's an honor, then. Yeah. This is historic. Break out the champagne right.

00:02:35 - Jerry Dugan
Out of Italy. You got knighted when you were in 2007. So I was like, that is so cool. I saw that. I'm like, okay, now I'm even more excited you're on the show.

00:02:47 - Franco Lofranco
That is funny.

00:02:48 - Jerry Dugan
Oh, man. Now, just so everybody knows, he's not wearing armor he doesn't have a sword in his hand or anything like that. We're in the 21st century here.

00:02:57 - Franco Lofranco
It's a funny story about how that happened. So I had built all these companies, and so somebody from Italy decided to come and do a little story on me, because both my parents are from there. So I said, hey, let's do a story on this guy. I built one of Canada's very first high speed Internet companies with some cool technology. Some other stuff I built. So he said, oh, let's do a story on him. So they put it on TV in Italy over and over and over again, and that's when the minister of foreign affairs saw him. He goes, Maybe we should nominate this guy to be united, because in England, they do it by the king or queen, and then in Italy is done by the president himself. That's who actually gives it. And back then, Bern sconey was the president back then. So I got a call, and I thought it was a joke. I got a call from the foreign minister's office. Hey, congratulations. You've been nominated to be united. Where does that mean? He goes, well, there's a process. Okay, good. I said, how long does the process go for? We don't know. Okay, so I forgot about it. To be honest, I totally forgot about it. A year later, they called me back, congratulations, you made it to the next level. I said cool. How many levels are there? We don't know. I said okay. Cool. I forgot about it again. They call me back the third year, same thing. Fourth year, same thing. Finally, in the fifth year, they said, Congratulations, it's official. You're going to be knighted. I'm like, wow, that is so cool. Great thing. Service at the embassy, parliament. It was just an amazing experience. My parents loved it. Oh, my God. For my parents, it was like, a huge highlight. A lot of was. It's funny here. Nobody knows what it is. Nobody knows what it means. So nobody cares. When you go to Italy, it's a big deal. I've been upgraded in hotels. I've been given free food at restaurants. I've been given free clothes at a clothing store.

00:04:40 - Jerry Dugan
Wow.

00:04:41 - Franco Lofranco
So that's where they care there. But here, it's like, what is that? What's the big deal? It's kind of funny.

00:04:50 - Jerry Dugan
Oh, man, that's fun. It's almost like any of us who are, like, in a leadership role at work. It's like, yeah, I'm director of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or I'm vice president of whatever. And then you're back home, and it's like, hey, dad, can you get some food for me? And you're like what? I'm the leader of men. What is this exactly?

00:05:08 - Franco Lofranco
The only time I actually brought it out was when I used to be single years and years ago. And I'd be, like, at a bar or club or somewhere or a restaurant, be talking to a girl, and she's not giving me time a day. And I'm like, Excuse me, do you know that I'm excited? That's the only time I would pull it out. Wow. Nothing. It work doesn't have made any difference. It's when you're desperate, like your lies that you're hellberry. Right? Okay, Elberry.

00:05:35 - Jerry Dugan
Everything else has failed. What else do I have to lose? And then you know more about them, too. If it works, it's like, great, I got a fun night. And if it works, you also know, okay, she was only into me because of my title.

00:05:51 - Franco Lofranco
Exactly. You're always going to be a short stint.

00:05:53 - Jerry Dugan
Yes. So you kind of know where you stand if it works.

00:05:57 - Franco Lofranco
Exactly.

00:05:58 - Jerry Dugan
Right now, not so much to talk about Kniting and knighthood and all that stuff, although that was a really cool first ever conversation on this show, too. But beyond the rep, we talk about the five F's our faith, family, fitness, finances, and future. And when I learned about what you do and how you help people, I was like, oh, that hits two of those circles or pillars, two of the F's, whatever analogy you want to use to describe it, it definitely hits finance and future in a big way because you like to help. Specifically, family oriented men create that side business that creates that residual income for them. And so, I guess before we dive into how do you help people create their own business? I guess tell us about you already gave us a hint at the high speed Internet company you helped start when you were 24. But tell us about that journey of what you've learned from all your years of entrepreneurship and why that is a great route for people to consider.

00:06:56 - Franco Lofranco
That's a great question. So when I was growing up, my father brainwashed me. So this is the truth. My dad brainwashed me from time I was four years old. You will always own your own company. You will never work for somebody. Okay. So coming out of school, I said, okay, I'll start my own company. Only problem is you don't know what the heck you're doing. It's very hard. It's not simple to do, but you got to learn how to do it so that you can eventually do it. And I'm grateful. And I'll tell you why I'm grateful. It gives you an incredible sense of accomplishment. Whether it succeeds or fails doesn't matter. What matters is you go out there and it forces you to think at a level you've never thought before, because one of the things that it takes to be an entrepreneur is incredible resourcefulness. The number one skill you need, in my opinion, to build a company is resourcefulness. And if you can do that, you can overcome because you're going to hit obstacles every day. That's just normal for life, right? Versus when you get a job, you have your tasks and you're going to do every day. There's very little obstacles you're going to encounter, it becomes like pretty autonomous. Like every day you do the same thing, same thing, same thing over and over again. But they've proven doing that, it impacts your self esteem and your self worth. And if you're a man, especially, that is not a good thing as a man. Part of what I believe it is to be a man is to be taking care of your family and being someone that is a leader, because that's what fulfills men they need to be. And it's part of their, I believe their DNA to be the leader, to take care of your family. And it creates fulfillment. And if you know lost men that can't do that, they're not fulfilled, they're not happy. It's their self worth. They go into depression. You can see that happening all the time. It impacts their mental wellbeing. And so I learned that very young because I took some courses on that. And I learned and one of the things they taught me was, listen, if you're going to be a man in this world, you got to be someone that can take care of your family. That you're principled, you've got values. And if you do that, you have a great life regardless of the results. So I took that to heart and what my dad taught me to do, because my dad was that kind of man, I went out there and it's not comfortable, it's uncomfortable building company. You're going to fail 100%. You're going to fail if you think you're going to start a company 16. No, it's not. You're going to fail. But it's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Just learn from it and don't repeat the same mistakes, right? So my first few companies fail, no big deal. Lost money, that's for sure. Now, today's world, you can start companies with almost no money. That's the best part. Back in the day when I started starting any company cost a fortune, right? Versus in today's world. So for me, it was very important as a man to get into business for myself, to have that success, to achieve that. And by the way, whether you're a man or a woman, the same know, there is a very successful entrepreneur from Canada. He's a billionaire. He owns he made his money in the gold world. And I listened to him in an interview once, and his kids were all he has three kids, all incredibly successful. Typically, people that are wealthy, their kids are a mess, drugs, messed up, lose the money. But his kids were incredibly successful. I remember listening to this interview when I was young, and he said, Why are your kids they asked him, Why are your kids so successful? And he said, Because I gave them the greatest gift in the world. And the interviewer asked, what gift did you give them? The gift of confidence. How did you give them the gift of confidence? I gave them nothing. My daughter wanted a car. Great. Go buy it. I could have bought her a Rolls Royce. No, go buy your own. She bought a Volkswagen. Good for her. Okay, my son's. Hey, I want to know go order it yourself. So I would help them if they need advice, that's it. No money. Because now, today, I know I can put them in Siberia and they would survive because they have self confidence and self worth. So to me, being an entrepreneur means that, you know, you can go anywhere and survive. Entrepreneurship is phenomenal, but becoming accountable, being a leader, because no one's coming to save you, you're on your own now. You can create an environment of entrepreneurs around you, which I would recommend in coaches to support you. At the end of day, it's your decisions, it's your actions, it's your goals to achieve where you're going to go. And that's huge for mental eyeballs, for mental wellbeing, yeah.

00:11:04 - Jerry Dugan
I love that. Entrepreneurship makes you also think beyond just the scope of your job. So if you're self employed doing training facilitation, you have to think more than just, how do I run these training sessions? You have to think about marketing. You have to think about pricing and getting accounts receivable, accounts payable. You got to think about strategic planning. You got to think about, what are the money producers of this business? Whereas if you're just somebody who clocks in and clocks out, you only have that one avenue or that one channel of thinking. So that if you've always been an employee doing one thing, if something goes wrong in that job, I see a tendency, and you probably do too, that there's a tendency to blame your boss. It's my boss's fault, or you blame the company, it's my company's fault. And you don't really think, what could I do differently to make this situation better? Whereas when you're an employee, whether your business is booming or it's struggling, you have to think beyond just this one lane. And what I found for myself I was a real estate agent many years ago. Got in there right before the bubble burst. So timing wise, wasn't the greatest, but it also wasn't what I wanted to do. But when I got back into the workforce, something that made me stand out was that entrepreneurial mindset to be able to look at things from the finance team's perspective, marketing perspective, communication needs around change, management like a leader. And looking back on that, that has really paid off for me in the corporate world. And going back into business recently has been a big help as well.

00:12:44 - Franco Lofranco
And I'll bet you this, Jerry, I'll bet you when you were the real estate world, you really learned how to relate to people and be great with people. In today's world, that is massive because most people to me, business is simple. Understand business systems, number one. Number two, be great with people. You got those two things, you will be successful. Right? And I'll bet you when you work those things, great for Trinity. I mean, great with people, patients, relate to anybody, understand? You bring that into a regular corporate environment, you're already ahead of 95% of the people that are in that environment.

00:13:17 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah, I mean, you learn things like, how do you save a transaction over a $50 used mini fridge? But to get to the bottom of that, to have the patience to say, hey, what is it that's bothering you? What was the deal killer here for you in this conversation? And they might tell you on the surface, it's because you're asking for too much repairs, but then you learn to listen for things like when the selling agent mentions the mini fridge that was in the garage, like, four times, and it's like, wait, are you telling me the seller is mad because we got the mini fridge? Well, yeah, she loved it. She had this whole plan to have it in her garage at the new home, but now she has to go buy a new one. That mini fridge has been in her marriage since day one. I'm like, oh, well, we only asked for it because it was in the garage. Wait, what? You guys don't care about the mini fridge? I'm like, no. So if we give up the mini fridge, will we get the repairs? Let me ask my client if she's okay with that, but they'll tell you. And then so I did, and I texted my client. She's like, yeah, I don't care about that fridge, but if I'll do the repairs, they can have the fridge. So that was our counteroffer, was like, hey, if we give you back this mini fridge, can we get the repairs? And the listing agent went checked with his client. They were ecstatic. That one gesture made them feel, this guy cares about us, too. It's not just about gouging us. Yeah, you can have $500 in repairs for a mini fridge that probably wasn't even worth $50.

00:14:50 - Franco Lofranco
But this goes back to exactly what I said. You're in that moment being resourceful.

00:14:54 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah.

00:14:54 - Franco Lofranco
And that's for entrepreneurs, that is the number one trait you have to be able to step back and think of alternative solutions, possibilities, things like that. It's absolutely huge.

00:15:02 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah, because an initial no may not be no to everything. It's just that there's more behind it. It's like, well, why is it a no? Is it no longer profitable for you? That doesn't make sense. Is it no longer beneficial to your organization? Maybe there's just a concern, and it's one little thing that could be easily fixed. And if that's the case, it's like, let's fix that. And I love that. That's probably the biggest thing I learned being an entrepreneur on my own.

00:15:28 - Franco Lofranco
Huge. Love it. And look, you're going to learn all that's. What being entrepreneurs will. You're going to learn solidly, need lessons like that. And it can be from an empathy standpoint, like you just were looking at. It could be from a humbling standpoint. I had an incident where when I first arrived, major Internet company, I had to raise $40 million to get it off the ground. That's it. And I knew I didn't know what I was doing. So we brought in some cheap club, great hair, people to come help me, right? And one of them, very successful guy, VP of one of the biggest technology companies in the world, family was very wealthy, very successful guy. And I said, I had him come in and oversee what I was doing. So after about the first, let's say 30, 45 days, we were in business, we were hiring people, we were going crazy. Booing. And I said, then, okay, come into my office and just let me know what you're seeing, what you're noticing, how we're doing, et cetera. Sure. Very there. So he comes into my office, and he looks at me and he says, I don't think we're going to make it. What talking about, you don't think we're going to make it? We just got started. I just raised $40 million. What are you talking about? Because we're not going to make it because of you. They go because of me. What do you mean, because of me? Here's what he said. You are way too arrogant. We're not going to make it. You're going to have staff that's going to quit. I can see it now. We're going to have clients that will sign. We're not going to be successful. Wow. And it's like he gut punched me. Obviously, it was hard to hear, but it's what I needed to hear. And I'm saying, okay, what do I need to do? And he did the funniest thing. He kneels down. This is a guy, very wealthy, one of the wealthiest families in Canada, okay, I guess for a reason. He gets down and kneels in front of me, and he says, when you can do this, please, please. I did your California family just to take care of. He goes, when you can be that humble, he looked at me right in the eyes, and you can be that humble. We'll be okay. Now, obviously, he was exaggerating the point. He just said, look, you need to really smarten up and have some empathy for people. And I went on this quest and journey of leadership and learning and understanding people. It wasn't easy. It was painful, because where it stems from is insecurity, right? Where people are arrogant, because deep down, they're really insecure. So for me, for the longest time, I didn't believe I was worthy or good enough to be that successful. It was just something I developed since I was a kid. And so how I masked that was to overcompensate. I had to be the expert of all the statistics. So I came across as arrogant when really, what was deep down wasn't security, but I had to overcome that. And so when you get to the entrepreneur world, you're going to be faced with all those things. And let me tell you, it's scary, but amazing at the same time. Because at the other end, when you come out the other end, you promote the person you always knew you could be, that you always wanted to be, and the kind of leader that you always felt the world could have from you.

00:18:20 - Jerry Dugan
And it's almost like you read my mind too, because I was about to ask that arrogance that he picked up on, was that really a mask that you put on to kind of convey to everybody you were talking with that, I've got this together, you're in great hands. But really what you were doing was hiding the insecurity. And we already answered that. And so how did you make that shift in your mind to be more vulnerable? Because I'm sure it wasn't about groveling at people's feet, but what he was telling you to do, and what you wound up doing was you made yourself vulnerable or authentic and at the same time without being, like, begging.

00:18:57 - Franco Lofranco
Yeah. So the first thing is self awareness. You have to know you're doing that. So what happens is that mask I created when I was young and didn't realize, because after a while, it's like if you put a pair of yellow glasses on, after a while, when they're on, the world doesn't occur yellow anymore. It's just how the world is. So how I was operating in the world was just how I was operating in the world. That was just my normal way. I did not realize there was something underneath there that I was masking. I had no idea. And so that's just how I am. That's who I am. No, that's the way I became. And so the first step is always self aware. So it's important to put people around you. And I learned this. It's like that will call you on your stuff, say, hey, listen, this is what you're being, this is what you're creating. It doesn't mean you want to hear it, but you need to hear it. If you're going to achieve extraordinary results, if you're going to get to extraordinary places, you need people around you. They're not going to be yes people. They're people that are going to call you on your stuff. Right?

00:19:49 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah.

00:19:49 - Franco Lofranco
And so the first step is recognizing it. Now, once you recognize it, now, you're going to see it. Now you're going to see everywhere where it shows up. It's like, oh, I did it again. Oh, there it is, there it is. And then what you do do is you can create different ways of being in those moments that could replace the automatic way of being. So there's an automatic that you are that over time you've been being that all of a sudden, you can create it. Well, you know what? I'm not going to be this way right now. I'm going to be different. I'm going to be powerful. I'm going to be communicating. I'm going to be loving. I'm going to be generous. I'm going to be kind. You get to pick in those moments when you're self aware of different ways you could act and be with people, regardless of how somebody else is being with you or whatever the circumstances may be. But you got to know and be present to the automatic way that's there. And this is the problem. Most people don't know they're automatic because no one ever tells them anything, right? Because you can't see who you are. You can't see who you're being. You have no idea. A great analogy I like to use is, do you remember the first time you heard your voice on a tape recorder?

00:20:50 - Jerry Dugan
Oh, yes.

00:20:51 - Franco Lofranco
Did it sound like you like now, you're probably used to your voice because you're on a professional podcast. You know exactly what you sound like, but the first time you hear it is like, who's that? Erase Delete.

00:21:01 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah. First two or three years of podcasting, just editing, I'm like, oh, I hate this editing part. I sound horrible. Why do I sound like that? And it was like, oh, wait. I'm used to hearing my voice from inside the head fluid in my brain. And what I'm hearing now is external coming back in from other.

00:21:18 - Franco Lofranco
And the same thing goes with how we occur for people. We think we occur for people in a very particular way, and most of the time, it's very different than how we actually occur.

00:21:27 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah.

00:21:27 - Franco Lofranco
And so one practice I like to take on is interviewing people. So I'll interview people saying, hey, and I preface it by saying, listen, I'm not going to hold this against you. I'm not going to ever bring this back up again. I just need this is for my own growth and development, and I would appreciate it and ask them a few questions. I will ask them a question like, so let me ask you a question. How do I occur for you? What is the thing you like the most about me? What is the thing you hate the most about me? What about me drives you crazy? And it's not that I'm going to hold it against them. I'm not it's easy to do that. You don't do that caseless, like they said, it's something to be responsible for, for how you're occurring. And if you do interview enough people, a pattern will emerge of how you are occurring for people. Okay, I got it. Okay, I got it. It's not personal. It's just how you occur. And then you can do something. You can ignore it. You can just keep being the same way. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to. You have a choice, right? If you're happy with your life and how it's going? Great. But you may say, you know what, there's some changes I can make. There's something I could do differently here that may impact my life in a different way.

00:22:33 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah. And I think the hardest part of that process, too, is after you've asked that question, being quiet, we're so uncomfortable with silence that we want to fill it in. Like, oh, this person took too long. And usually you start self analyzing, and then they're like, oh, yeah, sure, if.

00:22:52 - Franco Lofranco
That'S what you want to hear, you're going to laugh. The first time I asked that question, I knew I was supposed to quiet. I kid that go, Wait a minute, why do you think that? Where did you get that idea from? All of a sudden, I'd be kid Belligerent, and the guy looked at him be like, okay, I'm out. I go, oh, so I'm sorry, I apologize. I must talk. It was hard. It was tough. Eventually, you get used to it because you want to argue. Like, if you don't agree, especially if you don't agree with what somebody said about you, you want to prove that they're wrong, that you're right. It was too funny. But, yeah, you're absolutely, 100% correct.

00:23:19 - Jerry Dugan
So having self awareness on your own, asking people to give that, is that first mindset shift. But the second one is, what do you want to do with that information? Is what I heard you say 100%.

00:23:31 - Franco Lofranco
So for you, then, it's like, okay, now that you have that information, do you want to impact it? Do I make a difference? And there's lots of ways you can do that for them. There's courses you can take. There's great companies out there now that are really and I recommend people do a lot of research because there's a lot of like everything else, there's always scam things out there that promise you the world. But one of the things you want to learn, especially if you're going to be an entrepreneur, is leadership and what it means to be a leader. John Maxwell is a great author, almost all his books. He's the number one author, I believe, on leadership. And there's a lot of great books on leadership. There's courses on leadership, because the one thing school will not teach you is leadership. I went to NBA school, didn't learn leadership. They're not going to teach you that. They can pretend to try to teach you that, but they really can't because where leadership happens is on the court. Where leadership happens is in action, not in some book, not in some theory. I remember I was in MBA school, and I had this professor, and he was teaching us some theory about some company that achieved success and what to follow. And I said to him, I put my hand and I go he goes, yes. How do you know it's going to work? Because it worked. I go, yeah, it worked for that company at. That moment at that time. How do you know it's going to work? Today goes well because it's a principle that you can apply. I go, how do you know? Have you done it? He looked at me right at three ends. He goes, Mr. Lopez, please. That is a ridiculous question. Stop asking questions in my class. I'm paying a lot of money. I want to know the answer because I want to build a company, and I want to know that this is actually going to work. And he can never answer it. And then I realized, you know what? I'm wasting my time here. And I made myself a commitment that moving forward, I was going to learn from people that actually did where I want to go. So to me, you got to be very careful who you listen to. Be very careful, because your brain doesn't know the difference between good advice and bad advice. It's just assimilating, assimilating, assimilating. So you're going to be paranoid about the information that's going into you at.

00:25:18 - Jerry Dugan
All times and taking the time to listen to the cautionary tales, too, because you could be working with somebody who has been successful as an entrepreneur, but maybe it cost them their family in the process, and you kind of want to be aware of that.

00:25:31 - Franco Lofranco
That's what I'm passionate about now, is helping people make money but not have to sacrifice their family, because that's important, because one good isn't making the money, and then you can't take the money with you. What's the point to it? I don't understand the point of becoming a billionaire and your family's gone. Tell me the point to that. You could say you became a billionaire. Good for you. Congratulations.

00:25:51 - Jerry Dugan
Now you die.

00:25:53 - Franco Lofranco
Good for you. Good for you. You know what people are going to say, okay, let's say you get a lot of people that will come to your funeral. Good for you. Got a lot of people that came to your funeral. You know they're going to say, right after they bury you, all right, we're going for coffee. Let's go. It's done, and it's over. And it's like you never even existed.

00:26:11 - Jerry Dugan
Because the world moves on without you. I was talking to somebody earlier about because they had gone through a divorce. They were finding career and success. But it cost this guy his first marriage. And he's sitting in the conference room of his lawyer's office to sign off on the divorce papers. And he's looking at the mahogany table, the wood bookcases, the many books that are there, the awards. And he's thinking, this is the worst day of my life so far. And this person is flaunting their success and their happiness. And after I sign these papers and move on, this lawyer is going to go on with her day and keep enjoying the life she's got. So I guess my point there is the world does move on with or without us. We have an opportunity to be present. There we go with the people and the relationships around us, because when we're on our deathbed, I know I'm not going to ask or say to myself, man, I wish I checked, like five more emails, or I wish I got to inbox zero today before I died.

00:27:09 - Franco Lofranco
You're 100% right. I can relate to it because when I was in my early 20s, that's how I was when I was building my business. I was sleeping at a couch in my office. I would never go. And I missed out on so much farm. I missed out on my family, which is fine. If you're building something, it's cool. But at the same time, there has to be a time where you're able to balance out. In today's world, here's the good news. Today's world, there's enough business opportunities and ways to make money that you don't no longer need to be able to have to sacrifice everything to make them money. You really don't. Just got to be smart enough to know what opportunities are worth going into and which ones are not.

00:27:44 - Jerry Dugan
I guess with the time we've got left, how do you help people identify that business that will generate the revenue for them and allow them to also thrive in their family?

00:27:53 - Franco Lofranco
That's a great question. So it's interesting something happened during the pandemic that really forced people to relook at their life and what they're doing, because before the Pandemic, everybody was literally automatic mode. They would go to work, do their thing, they wouldn't even think about what they were doing. Then the pandemic hits and all of a sudden they're home. And now they're reevaluating their life, their principles. What do they really want? What do they really want to create? I like working from home. This is awesome. I don't need to go to the office every day. Maybe I can go a couple of days a week. You know what? Maybe I can start my own company. Let's look at that. There's different ways. And then because of what happened, everybody learned to build on the Internet. The Internet opened up businesses and opportunities that maybe people weren't thinking about. The opportunity is always there, but now the markets grown to what people can do there. And so residual income then is the key. Here's what I've learned over the last four or five years since I would say the pandemic hit, people are now really more interested in quality time, whether it's traveling, family, kids, things like that. I was talking to a young lady. It was yesterday before yesterday, and pandemic hit. She went home and her old job wanted her to go back to the office. She says, no, I'm not coming back. Said, I'm done. I'm going to work alone. We're not accepting remote worker. Then I'm out. She quit. And now she's looking at so many other ways to make money. She's going to be getting also started with us from the standpoint of earning residual income. That's the second thing people want. They want to be able to program the income that keeps paying them if they stop working. Because today people are tired of exchanging time for money, right? Because people that own the companies I learned this from building an area company. I set up a customer one time, they keep paying their bill and wow, that's pretty cool. This is great, this is exciting. So you do the work once, and you get paid over and over again if you were working at one time versus I got to work to get paid. So there's different ways to earn income. When you're a business long enough, you'll realize, okay, there's better businesses to get into and worse business to get into. And the business you want to get into are businesses that are residual income. They have subscription models, services, essential services, things like that. So that's the other thing that's important. The third thing is you want a business can have some longevity to it. So it's not that, oh, it's good for this year, or it's good for the next six months. You want something that's going to be around for three, 4510 years. That's what you want. You want something that's going to create some longevity. You want a business that's going to be with companies that are going to be around. It's very important as you're building that residual. Because if you're building yourself a residual income, you got to make sure that we'll be around years from now. And then the other thing that we've learned is people want a collaborative winning environment. A team around you is going to support you, coach you, train you, and allows for personal growth that you can grow. You can create an environment where your leadership skills come out well. You'll be recognized for that. Not just, okay, good job, you did this job awesome. No, where did you grow? How did you grow? What did you do this week that's different? That forced you to become a better leader this year than you were last week, than you are this week. And so that's important. So putting the emphasis on what you want to focus on, for your own development as a leader, as a person, as a community member, all those things. And then the ability to expand and scale the business, because everybody's got a different number, right? Here's what I've learned being in business all these years. Everybody has a number. When you get to that number, people are happy. Everybody's got a financial number. If I make this number, I'd say I'm done. Everybody's just like, okay, good. Everybody's got a number. When you get to this number, I'd said, I'm happy. Okay? So they have to have the ability to get to that number, whatever that number is, they have to be able to see it. And then after, if they want to grow beyond that because they've gotten there and they realize, oh, you know what? I can grow more. It's kind of fun. I'm enjoying this. That's the way to do. We like to do it all this through the central service. We teach people how to make money in telecommunications, gas, electricity. And now we've just launched Christian based, ethics based healthcare company that's allowing people to save money with an AI technology or half their healthcare costs, which is a big deal, but that is allowing people now to enter into that world and provide that service and make residual income on that service which before was very difficult. A to get into and B to provide a service that same people that much money so they can make the money on. So we focus on teaching people, individuals, creating that environment where they can focus on essential services, make that residual income. Now, whether it's real estate investing, where you can make some residual income, whether it's financial services, it doesn't matter what it is, I always tell people this, look for income that's going to be residual. If it's not, I'm not sure, to be honest. It's worth your time. Now, if you want to build the company and it's yours to sell, that's different. Okay. If you find a product, but understand it's for you to get out of, get out of there as soon as possible. Build it and get out. Because what will happen is and here's what we've learned. We have learned that when you're building a company, your product may become extinct. AI right? Now, everything is changing so quickly. If you want to get in and provide a product material, cool, build it to sell, because three, four, five years from now, your product may no longer be necessary in the world. Wow.

00:33:08 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah.

00:33:09 - Franco Lofranco
You think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Cool. I've seen so many of my friends build companies, and then all of a sudden their product goes extinct because somebody else can own a better mouse trend. And so you've got to be careful. So if you're going to be in it for the long term, you got to have things that will be around for the long term that you can see. It's obvious things that have been around forever that we're going to need for the next ten years, 20 years, 30 years. But if you're going to build your own company, which is cool, whether you're going to be in always need real estate. We'll always need those kind of things, construction, whatever that may be, that you may need, great. Then that you could keep and use. But if you're not sure it's going to be around, build it and get out. Sell it. Take that money, reinvest it, and put it into things that can be around for the next 10, 20, 30 years.

00:33:53 - Jerry Dugan
Wow. That reminds me of a friend of mine, many years ago, he started a company that sold online currency For World Of Warcraft. And I was like, what?

00:34:04 - Franco Lofranco
Wow.

00:34:05 - Jerry Dugan
So you're not part of the company that created the game. He goes, no, but you go in and you sell currency so that people go and buy armor and power ups and all that. He goes. Yeah.

00:34:16 - Franco Lofranco
How?

00:34:17 - Jerry Dugan
He goes, it's proprietary. But this is how I do it. And I'm like how's it working for you. And he goes, I bought this house in cash. It was like a $300,000 home at the time. And you have an employee. He goes, yeah, that guy sleeping on my couch. He spends his day filling the orders. And really, it's just the troubleshooting because most of the orders are automated and it's recurring. Or it was just so neat. But he had a plan, and that was to get out within two years. And he eventually exactly.

00:34:47 - Franco Lofranco
Smart guy because he realized it's got a time window, it's got an expiration date. And let me build it. Let's make the money. And if I can sell it, great. If not, I made the money that I'm going to make and I'll can focus on something else. Exactly right.

00:34:59 - Jerry Dugan
I think he sold it where he kept 10%. He retained 10% of the profits for the life of the company. So every month, without doing any of the work, without fixing any of the problems for a few more years, he was getting 10% off the top of the revenue, no matter what. I was like, that is brilliant. So having that exit strategy, I think, is very huge.

00:35:20 - Franco Lofranco
That's a great point, Jerry, because you could actually build your own company or build it for someone else and retain a portion of the revenue. If you built it for somebody else, for yourself, while they run it and they do it, you may be the one that put it together and structured. I've done that before for people. And that's where it becomes really fun. They're really lucrative. But you got to find the right people to run it, the right company to run it, and retain yourself a little portion. Because if you get a really good company that's really massive or really big, it's got the resources to put behind it, but you're retaining a percentage of it, even though you have less of a percentage of what's yours. They can take it to a level maybe that you can't. And therefore your income part could be even bigger.

00:35:57 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah.

00:35:57 - Franco Lofranco
And less work on your behalf. So there's lots of ways to skin the cat, so to speak. But the focus has to be okay. Residual. Residual. You have to be indoctrinated and trained into you because I don't touch anything today that is not residual. So it's not worse than tie. Yeah.

00:36:12 - Jerry Dugan
I've got a friend and coach of mine who's been pounding that into my head. He's like, Jerry, think of something that you could use or generate that will provide you your living expenses for the month. Like still do all the other things that give you a paycheck, but if you could cover your costs through repeat type of income, so membership or service fee, retainer, those kinds of things, and you still provide value. Of course, you're not just taking people's money, but you're providing true value for them.

00:36:40 - Franco Lofranco
Actually, what he said is brilliant because it's funny. That's exactly what we teach. What we teach is two to 4 hours a day to putting that in to create a residual that pays for your expenses. Then after that, it's all bonus. Yeah, it's exactly what we teach by just helping people spend two to 4 hours a week. Let's get all your expenses paid now. Hey, you want to do more? You got more free time. Focus. You can make it bigger. Focus on other things. It's up to you. Because those initial bills are what kill people. That's the stress. That's just like your mortgage, your bills, this, that. It's incredible.

00:37:13 - Jerry Dugan
And so if people want to find out how to sign up for your course, because you got a course that'll teach them how to do this type of thing. And if they want to sign up for coaching or the services you provide, where do they go to find all that?

00:37:27 - Franco Lofranco
Website cabFrancoloFranco.com. And I'll spell it C-A-V-F-R-A-N-C-O-L-O-F-R-A-C-O. That's my real name. CabFrancoFranco.com. Sign up. I have some information there and there's a way there to communicate with me directly. Book an appointment. We can talk and we can definitely help you out and help you get on your journey to residual income.

00:37:47 - Jerry Dugan
Awesome. And then before we go, any final words of wisdom for our listeners?

00:37:51 - Franco Lofranco
Yeah. Life is short. I'm 54 years old now. Life is short. And here's what I've learned. Just go after it. Make it happen. All the things that we failed in, in the past, don't worry about that. Those are great building blocks for what we want to achieve today. Those are your stepping stones to your success. And failure is a way to learn how to make yourself successful. I've learned everything from failure, and so I embrace failure. I look forward to failure. The more epic your failure, the more you're going to learn. The more you realize, I'm not broken.

00:38:29 - Jerry Dugan
I'm fine.

00:38:29 - Franco Lofranco
I'm still here. I've survived. And it makes you so much stronger than ever before.

00:38:34 - Jerry Dugan
Awesome caveatti. Franco, it was great to have you on the show. I had to say that one more time before we left.

00:38:40 - Franco Lofranco
Thanks, Jerry. Big fan of yours, budy. Thanks for having me. I was glad.

00:38:44 - Jerry Dugan
All right, before you go, if you liked this episode, hit the share button right now and send the link to somebody you feel would enjoy and gain value from the conversation we had with Franco. Now, if you want more information, go to the show. Notes@beyondtherut.com three, seven, eight. There you'll find links to similar episodes. Link to my book beyond the Rut. Create a life worth living in your faith, family and career, and also a way to get in touch with Franco if you want him to help you explore ways to create residual income for yourself to create that time. Freedom.

00:39:24 - Franco Lofranco
Money.

00:39:24 - Jerry Dugan
Freedom. All those things. Now, I'm glad you joined me in this episode, and I look forward to joining you again on the next one. But until then, go live life beyond the Rut. Take care.