Have you also built a prison for yourself, instead of a life? When Curt Mercadante realized that he had built a magnificent business and booming agency that was imprisoning him and leaving him without the time or the frame of mind to be present for his family, he shut it down overnight and went touring in Europe.
In this episode, Curt discusses how to ensure that you are mentally and emotionally healthy, not just financially secure. We dive deep into the scarcity vs abundance mindset, the basements and balconies of your personal strengths and the values and vilifications of different social media platforms. Plus we discuss Curt’s struggle of ensuring that you have provided enough value for your clients without compromising your emotional wellbeing. This is episode is sure to give you an awful lot of food for thought.
My Guest: Curt Mercadante
Curt left the “corporate” 9-to-5 world at age 30 to start his own agency. He scaled it up to a consistent 7 figure agency over 13 years. After four years of running that agency, he was overwhelmed and frustrated. He felt like he had built a prison instead of a business and was working all the time. Curt decided to fired half of his clients, began to charge more for his services and built an outcomes-focused strategy that allowed him to be truly productive and that gave him freedom.
But when his father died in 2012, Curt realized he lacked fulfillment. A few years later, at peak revenue, he shut down his agency overnight to turn his side hustle of coaching into a full-time career. Now, he’s moved beyond coaching to run a media, speaking and lifestyle transformation company aimed at fighting apathy and conformity — and helping individuals fight for lives of freedom and fulfillment. Curt’s speeches and training empower individuals to live their Freedom Lifestyle and he also hosts the popular Freedom Club Podcast.
Episode Highlights:
06:17: I ended up firing half of my clients, increasing my prices, and hiring a team around me. And I doubled my revenue.
14:18: The worst is when people passive-aggressively rebel against the expectations that were only in their own head to begin with.
19:26: I have this job offer, I’m going to take it. Wait a second, does that fit the vision you have for your life? Just because the landscaping is better at that prison doesn’t mean it’s a better life.
25:17: He was listening to the news and found out that the police officers didn’t have bulletproof vests and they were getting gunned down. He called his buddy, he had these friends and he gets off the phone and he turns around, he’s like, “Yeah, I got like 50 bulletproof vests that are getting donated.”
32:57: Let’s be radically transparent. We started a blog where we started talking about everything, not just related to the lawsuits and all that, but the employes, like the hot dog eating contest they had on a Friday to raise money for their employee who had cancer.
39:08: Twitter is a street corner, which is where all the gossip spreads. It’s where everyone will say something, say a barb and move on. But it spreads like wildfire right? Nothing else is like that. So anyone who doesn’t want to be vilified, stay off Twitter.
45:33: All these strengths have balconies and basements. The balcony is like when you’re using your superpowers for good. Your basement is when your strength gets in your way.
49:54: Estie: What is the struggle?
Curt: Yeah, it’s that I never think I’m giving enough for what someone’s paying. It’s a constant struggle.
Quote:
No man is such a conqueror as the man who has defeated himself. -Henry Ward
Resources & Links:
For Part 1 of this episode, where you can hear more business advice from Justin, go to estierand.com/84-1.
Did you enjoy this episode? Then subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, so you can get automatic updates whenever another episode goes live (and you will be helping me get to #1 on iTunes, making us all cooler in the process!)