The Heart of Business
"The Heart of Business" podcast, hosted by Mo Fathelbab, is an authentic and insightful exploration of the human side of leadership and professional growth. Through candid conversations with accomplished business leaders, thought leaders, and peer group facilitators, Mo will delve deep into the personal journeys, challenges, and triumphs that have shaped their careers. Mo Fathelbab's skillful and empathetic approach creates a safe space for guests to share their truths and vulnerabilities, revealing the emotional and often unseen dimensions of success in the corporate world. Each episode offers listeners a chance to glean practical wisdom, heartfelt advice, and a profound understanding of the intricate interplay between leadership, authenticity, and personal growth.
The "Heart of Business" is the official podcast of International Facilitators Organization, LLC and hosted by IFO's founder and CEO, Mo Fathelbab. To learn more, please visit www.internationalfacilitatorsorganization.com.
The Heart of Business
Be Yourself, Build Boldly: Mike Michalowicz on Reinventing Entrepreneurship
In this episode, Mike Michalowicz opens up about his entrepreneurial highs, devastating lows, and the creation of the Profit First system that has transformed over a million businesses worldwide. From launching his first company in 1996 and joining EO Forum — where he discovered the unmatched value of honest peer connection — to losing everything in 2008, Mike shares the raw lessons that reshaped his outlook on business and life.
Determined to end “entrepreneurial poverty,” Mike reveals how he flipped the script on traditional accounting by putting profit first instead of last, using behavioral psychology to help owners build sustainable, thriving companies. He also discusses his work on The Money Habit, his upcoming TV show The Four Minute Moneymaker, and the personal philosophies that guide him today.
This is a powerful conversation about resilience, reinvention, and the systems that can help entrepreneurs around the world achieve lasting financial health.
Please visit www.internationalfacilitatorsorganization.com to learn more about Mo Fathelbab and International Facilitators Organization (IFO), a leading provider of facilitators and related group facilitation services, providing training, certification, marketing services, education, and community for peer group facilitators at all stages of their career.
Welcome to the Heart of Business podcast sponsored by International Facilitators Organization, the marketplace for facilitators. I'm your host, mo Fatalbab, president and founder of International Facilitators Organization, and today our guest is someone that I met over two decades ago, Mike Michalowicz. He's a longtime entrepreneur, member of the Entrepreneurs Organization and best known for his book Profit First and nine other business books. Mike, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Mo, we haven't changed at all. We look identical to 20 years ago.
Speaker 1:I think you look younger. Thank you, sir, you're welcome. You're welcome. Well, great to have you with us. So, mike, we met. When Was it literally 20 years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So you know you've worked with thousands, tens of thousands of individuals, so for me it's a very memorable moment for you. I'm sure it was your job function effectively. But we sat down and we were kicking off a forum and they said we're bringing this guy, mo Fatlo Bob, in. He's going to teach you how to run a forum. That's effective. And I'm like when we just talk and you came in and it was one of the most transformative meetings. It went so deep, so smoothly not quickly, not rushed, but smoothly. I was like, wow, and that forum I stuck with for about 10 years before I rotated to another forum. And those people are still some of my best friends in my life. I just saw them a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1:Well, that is amazing, and we're going to get back to that, but I want to start with you.
Speaker 2:Well, that is amazing and we're going to get back to that. But I want to start with you. And I didn't grow up poor. I was a very middle income, so I was expected to get one job for my entire career, type thing. Thing is, I couldn't get the job. After college I worked at a computer store and one night went out for a couple of drinks with another guy who worked there and Liquid Courage did help and I'm like I'm going to start my own business. So my first company was in computer systems. I started a business competing with the store I was working with and I'll tell you, don't leave a. Well, I did, don't leave a drunken message for the boss saying I'm going to start my own business and kick your butt like I did, you did that it didn't go well, no business and kick your butt like I did.
Speaker 2:That didn't go well, no. What happened? Well, he sued me and the reason he sued me was I didn't know you couldn't do this. This is such ignorance. I reached out to his customers that I was serving and say hey, I started my own little computer store. I can do your computer systems. I didn't know that was intellectual property theft. So he sued me. I went to court my second day. There was immediate hearing from the judge and we settled for a thousand dollars. That's all I had. I gave him a thousand dollar check and he said don't call a single one of my customers again. But two of them did decide to come work with me on their own accord and that became the start of my business. So I do regret I didn't know the rules, but it did get me started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So you started that business, and how soon thereafter did you join YEO EO Entrepreneurs Organization.
Speaker 2:I joined. So I started my first business in 96. I joined EO by 98, 99. We just eked out a million dollars in revenue. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I remember, I remember like you had to qualify for a million and the way to do it was to get your accountant to certify this. So I'm going to my accountant and the day we hit it was like on December 22 or whatever, so it wasn't even year end and I'm rushing his office. He's like dude, I'm closing down for the end of the you know, the winter holidays and so forth. I'm like Jess, you got to do this one document. He's like, wait, I'm like I got to get this document. He's like, okay, fine, and I went racing back this was still fax time, fax that over in and he said congratulations, you're in. And I joined the New Jersey chapter.
Speaker 1:I was, I think, the third year of the chapter in existence is when I joined Amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2:And why was it so important for you to join? I'm sure you hear this from everybody. I know you know this too. Mo is entrepreneurship is embarrassing to say, but it is lonely Like none of your friends who aren't entrepreneurs get it. All your employees think you're a millionaire when you're actually spending millions if you got it and it's very stressful and even your spouse doesn't really get it. And so we joined it.
Speaker 2:and because I wanted people that got what I got, yeah, I remember my wife saying oh, you're joining some secret club like some, some secret society I heard those words right, right, and I'm like, no, I'm just gonna go in there, but you, you can speak from your heart because there's other people that are going through the same experience as you. It was powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And reflecting back on it, what would you say was the effect of Forum on your life? It?
Speaker 2:was cathartic because I could speak about things I wouldn't speak about otherwise just because other people wouldn't get it. It was guidance. I got direction, got direction, you know, no advice, just experiences. Sometimes, uh, directive experiences which were almost got, you know, was almost telling you what to do, but so helpful because now I was surrounded by eight, seven or eight other people that had, in some cases, gone through the exact same circumstances I was. I was also very fortunate I was the youngest guy in my forum, by five or six years. Now this is.
Speaker 2:I joined when I was YEO, so you had to be 40 years or younger and I was in my 20s and these guys were old guys in their 30s giving me direction and it was powerful. It was also inspirational. Like I launched another business out of there that became a multimillion dollar business within a year or two because of my forum. Um, and it's been a savior for me that there was a time when I was like, okay, it's, this is not going the way I planned, I don't know the way out, and the group once they saved me. This is not like a suicidal thing, but I was like I'm done with entrepreneurship, I'm just done financially, I'm over, and my forum stepped up and said no, no, no, no, you're just getting started. And it became transformative for me.
Speaker 1:Isn't that something?
Speaker 2:Yeah and listen. The funniest thing, mo, is, the people in forum aren't your friends, they're something better they're better, they're better and I finally figured it out, at least for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my friends, there's social consequence. So my buddy, who I grew up with, we're in the same social circle, so if I tell or reveal or something like that, even though he's my buddy, there's also social consequence, like, oh, maybe there's a piece of information that I I shouldn't or I should hold back because he knows the same people I know and I can't reveal that. But my forum they're not, we don't. No one knows anyone's communities, and so there's this unabashed honesty and caring and there's no competition or jealousy. I mean, I'm sure it's friendly competition. I, you know, I want to be the best in my forum, inspiration, inspiration. But my buddies it's funny Like my friends, I, there's a, there's an inherent competition because we grew up together. But but these guys and gals, no competition like that, they're better than friends. It was the most ironic thing.
Speaker 1:It is. It is Absolutely so back to your business. So you started this business and you ran it for 18 years. Is that right?
Speaker 2:No, no, my first business it was computer networks. I ran it for probably seven or eight years before I launched another business, so I was when I was. I started when I was 26. I sold it when I was 32, around there, so it's actually only six years. It was a private equity deal. There was a couple other owners in the business by that point and they wanted to take it in a direction. I wanted to take it in a different direction. So we said, you know, as best as it apart ways. It was very friendly, but I wanted to move on to bigger and better things faster. And it worked out great. They got the funding and I moved on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you pivoted. So not a lot of entrepreneurs that I know pivot completely and change the entire direction and go into a completely different business but you pivoted.
Speaker 2:So what was?
Speaker 1:the inspiration for that.
Speaker 2:Well, there was, yeah, so there was a bridge business. First I went from computer networks to computer crime investigation and that came out of form actually. So I said I'm ready to move on. And, um, I meet another forum mate and we're like oh, there's this, there's these situations going down. There's this horrible murder case called btk which was buying torture kill. It was a serial killer and I said they caught him with a floppy disk, like computer evidence is becoming relevant.
Speaker 2:So we started this business and within six months Enron, the Enron trial had broken. And we got the phone call and they said oh, we discovered. You know, they found us in the phone book. Basically, we're now working the Enron trial, not the prosecution. That's the FBI. We're doing the defense side. So Kenneth Lay, andrew Fassett, our clients, fbi, we're doing the defense side. So Kenneth Lay, andrew Fastow, our clients. And we were successful. We found what we needed to find. They were guilty. They were guilty, but we found what we needed to find and it puts on the map in such another level that celebrities Christie Brinkley hires us. Michael Jackson, he was accused of heinous crimes and we were called in to investigate that. So we just started getting all these opportunities coming our way, sold that business to a Fortune 500 and thought I was God's gift to entrepreneurship. And this becomes the great learning I have more money than I'm ready to have.
Speaker 2:I'm in my early 30s and I don't. I think I'm a genius. I think I got the Midas touch. I actually believe that, calling myself that and I lost it all, just blowing money. I became an angel investor. I didn't really know what that means Blowing money and the turning moment for me happened just a few years later. It was in 2008.
Speaker 2:I get a call from my accountant. He's like Mike, you got to declare bankruptcy. I'm like and you know, mo, I saw my accounts dwindling so fast. I understood logically I was losing money, but emotionally I couldn't accept it. I'm like I'm just one big client away. I was rah-rah-ing myself and I was. I was not telling my family either. And I get that call. Uh, I didn't declare bankruptcy, but he said the only other thing you can do is there's a couple of remaining assets your cars. You get rid of the house and you can pay your tax bill, but you're done. And so I came home to my family and told them we're losing their house, we're losing everything. And my wife and kids were shocked because they had no clue it was coming.
Speaker 2:I'm sobbing. I'll never forget this. My daughter. She runs her room, she goes Daddy, daddy, I'll help us. And she grabs her piggy bank and gives me her piggy bank. She's like I'll pay our bills. And I'm like, oh, if I think about it too long, I actually start sobbing again. It was I'm so ashamed of you. Know, you and I, folks listening, we all label ourselves as providers Like you're. You're a provider for yourself, your family, your community, our globe, and I'm like the one rule to provide I can't fulfill. I'm actually doing the reverse. I'm like a scumbag. That that moment became the turning point and it wasn't like. The next morning I woke up and said, okay, next morning I started drinking more than I should drink. I went through a depression for a few years.
Speaker 1:Understandable.
Speaker 2:But yeah, but it became a restart and there's a really interesting question. There's actually two questions that we should ask ourselves. I think One is we've all heard this if you had all the money in the world, what would you do? And it gives you it's a great question because it considers there's no financial obligation. But I found there's a second question that's even better, and it's the complimentary question If you had no money in this world, what would you do? And so the all the money in the world means you have no financial concern. No money means that you have a mechanism of making money, so it's not just like the freedom to do anything. That's wild what do you want to do? And also generates a source of providing.
Speaker 2:And so I asked myself that question. I said I don't have any money, I've got nothing left. What do I want to do to create money? And what do I want to do if I had all the money? And both of them is in stereo I want to be an author, I want to be an author, I want to be an author. And I remember telling one of my wife, mo I'm like I want to be an author. I got to do this in the business space. And she goes are you effing crazy? Like authors don't make any money. I'm like I have to, we will, I will, and that's how I started. All right, all right, all right.
Speaker 1:What All right, all right. What a great story. Thank you for sharing that and your openness and vulnerability. That's just wonderful, and you've gotten through it, which is really what makes it wonderful.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about your books. The first one was Profit First. Well, my first yeah, I've written nine Profit First was like three or four. The very first book I wrote was called the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:Yes, I remember that. You remember that remember that I do.
Speaker 2:It was this irreverent kind of spit in the face of what I was reading, which was that was the rise of mark zuckerberg and sergey brin, all the those people of the dot-com era. They were. They were. We had the dot-com bubble of 2000,. But by now, 2008, 2009,. They started going again and entrepreneurs were trying to emulate that. But the entrepreneurs I know the EO folks and stuff weren't like that. It was you were in for the fight. So the whole concept was how can scarcity be your ally? And that's why I wrote that book and back, believe it or not, that was considered a controversial title in 2008. Now, it's like the subtle art of not giving an f is not. That's not even like controversial um, so I it was hard to get promotion, like like radio shows and stuff wouldn't let me on. There was a tv show, uh, this show called the big idea at die deutsch and he said I, you're coming on the show, but you're not mentioning the title of the book.
Speaker 1:It's too edgy, wow yeah, isn't that funny, wow, that's funny. So then profit first comes out, yeah, and that book takes off a big book takes off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was funny to me, mo, it was so obvious. So what profit? First is the traditional month. The traditional method to generate profit is you have your revenue, like you do for your company. You subtract the expenses you incur and what's left over is profit. Makes logical sense.
Speaker 2:But I did this study and it's over 80s. About 83% to 84% of businesses are not profitable. They're living. Check by check Out of the 350 million businesses globally, almost no one's making it. So I'm like hold on. We all went into business to be profitable. That's why I did it and other things.
Speaker 2:But I want financial freedom and yet no one's doing it. What's wrong? And I remember just beating my head again what's wrong? And I looked at the formula. I said, oh my God, it's staring me right in the face.
Speaker 2:Profit comes last. We call it the bottom line, the year end, and it's human nature. When something comes last, it means it's insignificant. Like Mo, you would never say I love my family so much. That's why I always put them last. Or my health. I'm focused on my health and it's the last thing I'll ever do. No, I focus on my health, it's the first thing I'll ever do. I love my family. I put them first.
Speaker 2:I said if I put profit first, it has to happen. So what I started doing is it's the pay yourself first principle. It's nothing new. I just said I'm going to put it into business, not just my personal finances. So when I have a sale, when he comes in, I take a percentage profit 10, 15%, wherever my bottom line to be I take it first, hide it, and then I see what's left over and say now I have to figure out how to make this work to achieve that profit. And if I can't, that means there's something flawed in my business. I got to cut costs, increase margins, change prices, but by taking your profit first it reveals what you need to do within your business to sustain that profit.
Speaker 1:I think that's brilliant. And how did that book change your life?
Speaker 2:It's sold over a million copies and it's like thank you, man, it it's sold over a million copies. And it's like thank you, man, it's. It's in 30 languages, dude, I would. I don't know if this is the changing moment, but it was funny. I was in touring through mexico. Uh, I started monterey, mexico city and I moved on to the central american countries. I'm in, I land in monterey, mexico, and I'm waiting for a chauffeur or something to pick me up and a bus drives by and like holy crap, that's my face on the bus and it says la ganancia primero, the the gains are first, or profit first. It says it right there. Oh, my god, what a moment what a moment what a moment that was.
Speaker 2:It adios me, ad it, adios mio, adios mio. That was the moment I was like, wow, this is something that's now beyond me. There was, there's these videos I'm seeing online of people teaching profit first their own version of it and not necessarily the way I would do it and maybe a little bit off the core concept of the system, but people had embraced it. I started seeing it in the vernacular like, oh, are you taking your profit first? Are you a profit firster? Are you profit first driven? Are you a profit first organization? And these were terms I didn't bring about, they just happened and I was like, okay, this is something beyond me now.
Speaker 1:I love it. So, beyond the book itself and beyond your work as an author and writing many books, uh, what other work do you do? I'm sure there's some speaking and consulting.
Speaker 2:Tell us more, yeah yeah, so I I'm generally don't do any consulting myself. I do have. I do a lot of speaking, public speaking, and I have licensees that teach the methodologies of profit first, but by also also my other books, and this is a shocker for me. I have a television show now. We finished recording the show. It's called the Four Minute Moneymaker. We just finished recording it about two months ago the first season and broadcast this September.
Speaker 1:Wow, when will it? Where will it air?
Speaker 2:It's on a streaming network, so it's called Watch Free Plus, which is owned by Vizio. So if you happen to have a Vizio physical television, it will come right on your television. You're going to see this mug.
Speaker 1:Lovely.
Speaker 2:And if you don't have Vizio, you can just use Watch Free, the app and then, six months after it's on Vizio, it goes to all streaming channels. So it should be on Prime and Netflix time of my life, because the producers of the show were the producers of Rachel Ray. So just the quick backstory, because it's a fascinating business story. Walmart has purchased Vizio, the TV manufacturer, and what Walmart realized? They're competing against Amazon. Amazon's kicking their butt. So Walmart says one way Amazon's beating us is with the Alexa devices. They're in every room. There's one right here it's listening to me right now, probably and they can control the interface with the customer. We, walmart, don't have a device in everyone's house.
Speaker 2:So they bought Vizio. They said well, vizio's in 25 or 30 million homes and we're going to update the firmware. So what they did is if you have a Vizio TV, your firmware has been updated, in that it now will broadcast and put out content that Walmart wants. What they realized is Netflix gets a monthly subscription, and so does Amazon Prime and so do all these other channels. But when you buy a television, you buy it once and you don't pay ongoing for a subscription for the TV. So what they're doing is they're like we're gonna beat Netflix at its own game, we're gonna send out our own content, but we're going to make it free to the user but run ads.
Speaker 2:It's old TV commercials. So my 30 minute TV show has 22 minutes of content, eight minutes of commercials, and that's how it's generating income. And and busy is not the only one doing this Samsung, sony, all the TV manufacturers are doing it. So it was a blast doing this. They hired the crew from Rachel Ray, who produces Rachel Ray, so they were the production house there and it was just a blast. It was hard. We got a full season done in one week.
Speaker 1:A lot of recording. Wow, wow, amazing. Well, I can't wait to see it. I'm sure it's going to be absolutely fabulous. Thanks, yeah, Thank you. So you've written other books. Tell us about one or two of them that are really meaningful and special to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, sure. So I'll give you two. My most recent one, which is in circulation, it's called All In, and what I do, mo, is I try to find a singular catalyst that fixes the core issue. So, profit first. Businesses start with profitability. What's the one catalyst? Well, if you take your profit first, it forces you to investigate the rest of your business, and I do this in every one of my books.
Speaker 2:In All In, I said why are businesses struggling to achieve their vision? How come the employees aren't acting like owners in particular? And I said oh, it's because we set a corporate vision. But a corporate vision is a reflection of what I want. I want my business to achieve this as an entrepreneur. Maybe there's a leadership team, but it means something to my ego, it means something to my wallet. But my colleagues, why do they care? And I realized businesses, erroneously, are saying a corporate vision when they should be setting a collective vision. A collective vision, a collective vision is understanding what does everyone want to get out of this? It's dude, it's just like forum, like what does everyone trying to get out of this? And by coming together, how does everyone get elevated? So it's a new form of leadership thinking Um that's the book.
Speaker 1:I love that by the way, that's right Right up my alley. Keep going, yeah, you do yeah.
Speaker 2:I know. Shamefully I didn't interview you for that one, so I got to interview you for the follow-up, but that's what it is. The book I'm also proud about is coming out in January of 2026. It's called the Money Habit. This was interesting.
Speaker 2:I deliver profit first. There's tons of businesses doing it. I'm getting great feedback. I'm very happy and honored and flattered all at once.
Speaker 2:And then I get a call from an entrepreneur. He says uh, probably first transform my business, but I have a bigger financial problem than ever. I'm, like you know, worrying to do what to do with all your money. He goes no, no, no. He goes. My employees, um, they struggle financially. And he goes you got to realize that if my team is struggling independently, it's not their problem alone, it's mine, cause that worry lives with them. He goes a lot of them are coming to me saying you got to give me a raise, I can't afford to live this way. And he says I'm paying them better than anyone else in our industry and I've given them raises and they come back almost like a week later saying it's still not enough.
Speaker 2:And the realization was oh, we as individuals in our personal finances, have the same problem as businesses that we want to achieve financial independence, but the pathway to get there isn't more money. Businesses make more and more and more and they still go under. The challenge actually is financial control. We need to assert control, irrespective of how much income is flowing into us personally or in our business, and then, once we have control, then we can dictate financial independence. So the money habit uses basic core principles, very similar to profit, first modified or enhanced I should say for the individual, for personal finances, so that we can have financial clarity brings about financial control and then assert financial independence.
Speaker 1:Financial clarity brings about financial control and then assert financial independence.
Speaker 2:You know I heard an Indian guru once say you are rich if you spend less than you make. That's it. Yeah, that's the essence of it. Yeah, that's the essence of it. And so you know what? It's funny, that's the essence of the book. But it's the how do you make that happen?
Speaker 2:And the reason it's called the money habit is, I realize it is very difficult for humans to change habits. So if you spend less than you make, you will be rich. That is absolutely the truth. But do you have the discipline to stick with it? And the reality for most of us is we don't. And there's a thing called the optimized foraging theory and other reasons why we go into consumption mode. But instead of trying to change our habits or use discipline, we can channel existing habits. So what we do is, I noticed most people don't run budgets, most people don't balance their spreadsheets or checkbooks with spreadsheets, and most people don't live a life of deprivation long enough to be successful. But what everyone does is we log into our bank account and see how much money we have and then decide how to spend it. So I say, okay, if that's what we do, how do we keep logging into our bank account but become wealthy as a result, and that's where I used a lot of behavioral principles. But one of them is optimal foraging theory and how we consume things can be controlled if you put things in containers effectively. So at the bank level, we set up containers accounts. Where money comes in, we carve it up to different accounts so we know it's intended use before we spend it.
Speaker 2:One is for my basic needs, so we have, I have a needs account. One is for my wants and desires. You know I have to go out to dinner or whatever. Maybe one's my big dream. One is for my wants and desires, you know, to go out to dinner or whatever. Maybe one's my big dream. One day I want to buy my first house or maybe a second house. You carve it up. So what happens now is when you go in, you have this momentary awareness saying, oh, before I spend, I have this much available for groceries or whatever. We also use a dedicated debit card, so I go grocery shopping. I and this is true in my life I have a groceries card and I never overspend because I can max out that card. There's other techniques, because I have a propensity to steal from one account and say, well, maybe this one time I'll borrow. It's a waste to address it, but I'll share one technique right now your listeners can do, irrespective of this system. That was transformative.
Speaker 2:Subscriptions are a technique that vendors use to extract the most money from you, because it's the small Chinese water torture. It's a small drip every month that are taken from you and in each trip is innocuous, but in the collective it's a watershed and it drowns you. So what you do is get a new credit card, an additional one, which I know already sounds crazy, but get an additional credit card. Then, everywhere you have a subscription, move it exclusively to this card, so it becomes your subscription credit card. I had one for my gym membership. I have a rowing machine, I had one on that, I have Netflix and all these different things.
Speaker 2:I thought I was spending a couple hundred a month. Once I had it all on one card and I got that statement for $500, I almost threw up in my mouth. I was like my gosh. And what happens is clarity brings about the ability to bring control. I started cutting stuff and then every month I get the subscription card and say, wow, I'm now paying about 300 a month. Is this what I want to sustain? And I am in control and can make decisions around that.
Speaker 1:I love that. That is great, thank you, thank you for that yeah. So, Mike, what is next for you? You know, in terms of 10 years from now. You've really made a big difference. You've done a lot of incredible work. You've helped a lot of people, and just the people that have heard what you've said in the last five minutes are going to be helped. But you look ahead 10 years and what's next? What's exciting? You.
Speaker 2:This path has been so joyous, mo. More books, maybe more television. What's interesting about TV is it's a whole different community that consumes it. There's people who read books and there's people who watch TV and there's people who do both. But there's definitely these distinct groups and I really want to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty, this perception of success or desire, and the real struggle that no one knows is going on and, like I shared, there's 350 million small business owners in our globe. That's under $25 million in US revenue, and I want to eradicate that Through my work. My best estimate is I've touched between one and a half to 2 million people, which means I haven't even got the first drip out. There's 350 million people, so I got to get more books out, I got to get more television out or speak more or I got to do something in a better, bigger way, but this community is where my heart is.
Speaker 2:I want to serve them for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. Last question, Mike.
Speaker 2:One person who has inspired you and how. You know one phrase that comes to mind and it's served me so deeply, and of course I never met this person it's oscar wilde. I mean, he goes back centuries but he has a phrase uh, at least it's attributed to him that says be yourself. Everyone else is already taken and I was like, oh, that's the solution. I will tell you how to at least I believe, to be successful in the authorship game or the entrepreneurship game or any element of life. Don't try to do what everyone else is doing and don't, surely don't try to be better at what everyone else is doing, just be the best expression of yourself.
Speaker 2:When I write my books, it is absolutely my voice, and the greatest compliment I ever got was I got an old college buddy who reached out to me 30 years after college I mean, this is only a few, a few years ago and he says I had to call you because you wouldn't believe this. I'm reading this book and I was loving it and I'm like this reminds me of that kid from college, michalowicz, that goofball, a little bit of an a-hole, and it sounds just like him. And he goes. I wonder who wrote this? And he goes holy cannoli and he's like it's the same dude and that was the greatest compliment ever got. Like you, me, everyone listening in.
Speaker 2:If we really lean into who we naturally are, unabated, unabashedly don't care about how other people feel about us. It's the greatest irony and people feel the most about that. They, the right people, engage and say, finally, someone's stepping up in the way that I want to step up, they're representing me in the way I want to be represented. There you cannot be being yourself all out, and that's been the greatest advice and therefore the greatest influence in my life I think that is wonderful and poetic and inspirational.
Speaker 1:Mike Michalowicz, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Thank you to our audience and, as a reminder, podcast reviews have a real impact on a podcast's visibility. So if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a review to help others find the show. Thank you all and have a wonderful day.
