Joe Fier sits down with Aaron Young, entrepreneur, author, and creator of the "Unshackled Owner" method. Aaron shares game-changing insights on how to design a business that doesn’t own you—one that thrives beyond your own time and energy. From the foundational question every business owner should be asking, to real-life stories (including how Aaron earned nearly $1M while physically unable to run his company), this episode is packed with lessons for entrepreneurs at any stage. Tune in for a mix of mindset shifts, practical frameworks, and inspirational proof that you really can build freedom and scale—on your own terms!

Topics Discussed

• The Core Question: Why it’s crucial to define the real outcome you're building toward in your business, and how most entrepreneurs skip this step.
• Unshackled Owner Concept: What it means to build a business that operates without you, and how it differs from simply being self-employed.
• Building Systems & Teams: The principles behind creating a culture and team that can continue running and even growing your business in your absence.
• Surviving and Thriving During Crisis: Aaron’s powerful personal story of being unexpectedly removed from his business for 14 months, and how systems allowed the company to not just survive, but thrive.
• Big Business Lessons for Any Size Company: Why these principles work for both solopreneurs and large organizations, and how to practically implement them.
• Seven Critical Steps to Unshackling Your Business: Aaron’s proven formula, including developing vision, building the right team, creating intentional culture, and more.
• Investor & Partnership Mindset: Understanding your business as an asset and making short-term sacrifices for long-term growth.
• Creating Longevity Through Loyalty: How intentional leadership and support during tough times (like the 2008 crash) builds lasting, committed teams.
• Living Your Freedom Goal: The importance of defining and designing a business that enables the lifestyle and freedom you really want.

Resources Mentioned

• Unshackled: The 7 Levels of Business Excellence
• Barnes & Noble Link: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unshackled-aaron-scott-young/1144437542?ean=9781636983530
• Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Unshackled-7-Levels-Business-Excellence/dp/1636983537/
• Aaron Scott Young Website: https://aaronscottyoung.com/
• Laughlin Associates: https://laughlinusa.com

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What's the real outcome that you're building towards in your business?

So my guest today is Aaron Young, and he says that most founders

never stop to answer that question.

What's the real outcome that you're building towards in your business?

And you know, if they don't answer this question, it's why people

end up in this overworked and underpaid cycle in their business.

I know I've been there before.

Can you relate?

So today Aaron is gonna break down how to design a company that runs without you.

It creates freedom and it scales well beyond what your

own personal time and energy is.

And this works for people who are just starting companies or if you have one

that has been established, he's gonna lay out exactly what the principles

are, how to do it, and back it up with tons of stories, including one where

he was actually forced, literally forced to go away for 14 months and one

week, and he ended up making almost a million dollars in take home revenue.

Without even being able to lift a finger and write an email that's

business related or phone calls.

So like, just think about that.

It's all possible.

Aaron's gonna break it down.

Enjoy it.

Let's dive in.

Aaron, how are you doing, my friend?

Thanks for joining me

Yeah, Joe, always, it's really fun to be here with you.

I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we've been chatting and we met recently at a local

event at a shout out Greg Reid.

Thank you Greg

yeah, he was, Greg was just on, yep.

Scott Duffy made it happen too.

So a couple people that were just on this, uh, podcast, so

people are probably familiar with

Oh, good.

Yeah, well, I've known, um, Greg and Scott, I met them both in, I think 2011.

So I've known them for some time and I've had, uh, uh, numerous

interesting experiences and, and lots of referrals back and forth.

And, you know, it's fun to be around movers and shakers, which

is why I'm glad to be with you.

that's right, man.

And, and thank you.

Yeah, I'm, I'm happy to be included in that because that's in that

room that Greg put together, you know, his prosperity camp.

If anybody want to, uh, peek at it, uh, it's tough to get in though,

so I can't make any promises.

But yeah, talk about movers and shakers in that room and you know,

everybody just doing fascinating things and different aspects too.

Not all the same, but, but definitely laser focused in on whatever

it is and, and there to help.

And, you know, you and I connected there, but also had a good hour

chat, I think it was last week, and I was just like, oh my gosh.

There's so many cool stories that you have your mindset of, I mean, the whole

unshackled owner and this unshackled concept that you champion is kind of like

the ethos of what I have on this podcast.

Just like, Hey, it's up to you if you wanna shackle yourself to your business.

Um, but if you don't want to and you still want to thrive and scale something

awesome, then this is your man right here,

Yeah.

You know, a lot of people, the thing about the, the book and there it is over

my shoulder, and hopefully you got a copy of it when we did the book signing.

I

I didn't, I missed your, the signing.

Yeah, we were on the

well, we'll make

it's all good.

I'll, I'll get

the, the, the point is, um.

I'm not, I didn't create that book to say, you, if you want to be, um,

a real leader, if you wanna be a real success, then you need to be unshackled.

And that was not the point.

The point was, if you are a true entrepreneur, especially, right?

And you've got a million ideas and opportunities are always coming at you

and you're trying to figure out how do I figure out what to do with my time?

This, if you, if you can get one thing going well and, and, uh, and you know,

you've got, you've got predictable revenue, you've got, uh, you've, if you

can build systems, if you can build a team, um, that ha that are capable of

operating without you being there to look over everybody's shoulders, right?

Mm-hmm.

If the team and the system is built and the culture.

Exists that this is how we do things here.

Think about Disney, you know, for years, when they got to a critical moment,

they would say, what would Walt do?

Even though Walt was long dead, right?

Because the culture was a certain way.

So the idea of the book and the, and the training course that came before

it, um, uh, this is the simplified version of the training course.

Uh, because the training, the training course, uh, well, well,

I won't go into that right now.

The point is, I, I built it.

Say, if you want to be able to go on extended trips, if you want to have

something that's easily sellable, if you want to have something that you can

pass down, if you wanna have something that can make you a lot of money without

taking a lot of time, then here's a, here's my formula for doing it.

I'm not saying it's the formula.

I'm saying it's my formula that has worked.

Three dozen times on companies in all different industries.

Um, this is possible.

So unshackled doesn't mean retired, but it can, unshackled

doesn't mean unemployed could,

If you wanna

just own and not work.

You could own stuff and not work there.

Or it could be, I only wanna do this one little sliver of my business.

I don't want to have to be responsible for everything.

I wanna stay where I'm great.

That's what the course is all about.

And, and thankfully, thousands of people have let me know

that it was working for them.

And it's everybody from small companies, 2, 3, 4 employees to big,

big companies, public, big, publicly traded, uh, household name companies.

Um, and it's, uh, it's good.

And it just proves that once you learn a formula, it, uh, I, I

always say about same rules apply.

You know, once you know a formula, it can usually apply it all over the place.

So anyway, that's a long answer to what's the deal with, uh, you know, or

what's unshackled what's the concept?

And the concept is you be in charge of you instead of the company owning you.

that's a big piece.

'cause that's where I feel like most entrepreneurs get in that trap of, of you

are now owned by this machine you built, whatever it is, whatever flavor, size.

I mean, you mentioned Disney, and obviously most people

aren't running a Disney company.

But how does this relate to someone that's like, I wouldn't say just

starting out, but maybe that too.

But you know, the, the smaller teams that Smaller companies,

well, first of all, I've been, um, chastised by a lot of my readers or

people that have taken the course that I, I always say this is really

for companies with employees.

And I've had solopreneurs take the class and go, why do you keep saying this?

This is really helping me.

Organize my one person business, so please quit saying it's not for individuals.

You know, solopreneurs.

Cool.

what I will tell you is as you grow, if you have two or three people, or 10

people, or 20 or 50 or a thousand, the the, the more these tools are implemented

in these very dynamic in, in, um, these companies that are, that have lots of

teams and so on, um, you can by, by getting some boundaries around stuff

and getting a common language and a common reporting and a common, um,

outcome amongst the, the dynamic and and large group, you see rapid improvement

Mm-hmm.

in those companies where for an individual it's, it's harder to

change an individual's in nature.

Sure.

So you can teach them good principles.

You can show them a a, a, here's, here's a recipe to use, but if,

if it doesn't change their nature of how they want to do stuff, it's

harder also in a one person company's difficult to be accountable to anybody.

that's true.

That's very true.

Yeah.

it's just me, right?

So there's nobody looking at it.

It's only did it work or not work?

Did I make money, not make money?

Did I get my job done or not get my job done?

So the way, but as it applies to big or small companies, to answer your

question, um, so funny, I didn't know we were gonna end up talking about this,

but I'm, I, I love talking about it.

Um, when, when you have, okay.

The most important thing somebody can learn that almost nobody does, almost

everybody ignores or is unaware of

Hmm

what I consider to be.

The single most important thing in starting or growing a company,

the, the one most important thing is what's the outcome?

Like, what am I trying to get from this?

Why am I putting my money into this?

Why am I getting investor money?

Why am I putting all my time in?

Why am I taking on all this liability?

Why am I hiring people?

Why am I signing contracts?

Like, why am I doing this?

What is it I hope to get out of this deal?

What's the outcome I'm, I'm making effort toward and taking risk with?

Like, why, you know, how many people work their butts off and

they're not making any money?

Yeah, that's true.

They're, They're, just doing to yeah.

Or they're just putting all their time in 'cause well, I gotta make

payroll, gotta pay my employees.

Well, I've got, I've made all these commitments to clients

and I'm gonna finish it.

Or I've spent and years developing this.

This, these books or this system or this software, and I'm damn

well going to get it out there.

And nobody's buying it.

Nobody wants it.

Right?

Nobody wants it.

And people will beat their hit against the wall.

We, at that same event you and I were at, Brian, Tracy was there and he

gave an, um, a different example than I've heard him give, but I heard him

many times over the years, say the old Turkish proverb is, no matter how far

you go, down the wrong road, turn back.

Mm-hmm.

Still gonna be the wrong road.

Yeah.

And I look at people that are going, but I'm making such good time.

You know, but they're making no money.

There's zero money, but they're working their butts off.

And to what end?

They end up becoming a slave.

What?

They become shackled.

They become indentured to the business.

And, um, I was never willing to live that life.

how do you feel like, uh, because I feel like, uh, yeah, starting is, of

course, it's probably easier to figure out what the outcome is 'cause it's a

little fresher and with less momentum.

But let's talk to the people right now who are in the middle of this.

They're feeling a little shackled to their business, to

exactly what you just described.

Like, how would you, how would you lead them right now?

good question Mo and most people who end up, now I wanna be clear to your audience.

I'm not a consultant.

I'm a guy who's been buying companies for, um, 30 years, over 30 years.

Uh, I was starting companies before that and I had one big in a three year

period between 29 and 32 years old.

Had a, a big, uh, economic boost.

And about 32, 32 and a half I started buying businesses and I

owned Laughlin Associates 'cause I bought it, it was 29 years old.

Ferry Company.

Yeah, 29 years old when I bought it.

Right.

So it wasn't new.

And whenever, any, any day, any day, no matter where you are in the continuum

of your business, you can say, okay, hold on, let's evaluate for a second.

What was Steve Jobs?

He, he said that, um, if he, if he three or four days in a row, would look in

the mirror and think, I'm not looking forward to what I'm gonna do today,

he would say, then I knew I was off track.

If I'm not enjoying this, if I'm not having fun, if I'm not excited

about this, then something's wrong.

And most business owners I know and that I come in contact with

are just kind of showing up again.

It's like they're, they're, they're not a business owner.

Oh, this is a good designation.

They're not a business owner.

They are self-employed.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

They have a job.

They're the boss, but if they don't show up and do the work, there's

no business, there's no money.

They don't get an income.

It's like the box I'm, I'm visualizing it's like, oh, are you employed self?

It's like, or do you want to put something else there?

You know?

Is there

I mean, is your business your job, or is your business an

asset that makes money for you?

Right.

Are you the goose laying, laying the golden eggs, or do you have a whole

flock of geese that lay golden eggs?

I have a flock of geese.

Yeah.

It's a

I'm not the one doing the work.

Right.

Other

than

doing things.

like, in the middle of it, it's, it sounds like it's a shift mentally, right?

So it's a mind, it's, it's a, you gotta obviously shift with the mind and, and

I guess your heart too, and connect the person, you know, you as the leader.

But how, um, like are there parts of this, you know, because you mentioned,

you know, if there's predictable revenue, it's tough to turn off sometimes.

Or even if you feel like you're pretty shackled, I would imagine,

you know, you have systems.

I don't know if there'd be enough systems going on.

I'm just thinking where is, um, would you start in one area of the business

well, you're gonna probably start in the, in the area of the business where

there's the greatest lack, right?

So if you don't have systems, if you're good at selling, you're good

at transactions, but you're not good at building systems that make that

start to, um, make it possible to do more transactions and service more

people, then if you're really good at sales, but you have no systems, then

you need to look at your systems.

If you're really good at systems.

You're really good at sales, but you have no customers, then you

need to look at marketing, right?

If, if you have tons of clients coming at you and you've got systems, but you

can't afford to hire people to bear the, the burden of the work, we're

doing that right now at Laughlin.

I went out, found a great, um, contact for us, uh, set up a really good with

my team, a really good affiliation with a really successful company, and

we find ourselves now buried in work.

We're scrambling.

I've got the president of the company doing client intake calls, right?

it's, it's definitely buried then.

And so, and we're rapidly trying to hire, but because we're so buried,

because we all of a sudden went to double the amount of work in, in one day.

It just turned on the faucet, right?

Yeah.

so now we're hiring and we're going, but who's gonna train?

Because everybody's on the phone working, right?

So what you always want to do is make, always want to do is make sure,

and this is gonna seem me a little counterintuitive to what I just said.

Hmm.

So take three steps back and let me tell you how you get ready to

deal with a windfall like that.

How you get ready to shift a little bit where you're gonna go or identify

this new target or a specific target, and you're gonna start going toward it.

First thing I ask people, um, I have, I don't know, at least

a dozen companies that I own, somewhere between five and 20% of,

and those are things I didn't start.

They've come to me and said, will you help us?

And we'll give you equity in the company for helping us and

we'll pay you for helping us.

Um, when I first look at, I would say a hundred percent of these companies.

The first thing I, I look at and I go, okay, you don't have any surplus money,

but I see that your, your, um, books show.

When I look at three years of financials or 12 months of financials

or whatever they've got, I see that your, you're taking a significant share

or all of the profit of the company,

mm-hmm.

does that sound familiar to a small entrepreneurial business?

Absolutely.

Oh, we just got some money and finally I can pay myself back,

or I can get an nicer car.

I'm gonna give myself a raise, or I'm gonna take that $20,000

that's just sitting there and pay down some debt or whatever.

Right?

Okay.

That's cool.

That's fine.

But if you don't have anything left over, if you're just cash flowing it

right, how do you hire somebody to be.

Um, kind of, uh, every bit as good as you, but in a complimentary side.

So I'm great at sales, but you're good at operations and I need you,

but I have no money to pay you.

So my first question to those owners is always, are you ready to take a pay cut?

Mm-hmm.

Are you willing to take a pay cut?

You know what?

They always say no.

They always say no.

And they wonder why they're treading water because they can't grow because

they're, they're, they haven't left any meat on the bone for somebody else.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And so you're gonna, what you end up doing is going into a death spiral

down because you pretty soon can't fulfill the, the sales you've made,

you can't fulfill them as easily.

You're not doing a good job with customer service.

You're not renewing that customer a year later or whenever their, their

engagement with you is over 'cause you're so busy with other stuff.

You are.

Um.

You started out strong, but over the time you got less and less

communicative because you were busy dealing with other problems, right?

Or New, New, yeah, new new clients coming in.

So you're forgetting about the old,

yeah.

You bite off more than you can chew and you can't afford to get the help you

need, so you end up actually getting a worse reputation in the market instead

of being this glowing success story.

So the first thing is, if you, if you're today and you're going, okay, well I've

been treading water, or I haven't been growing the way I want to grow, and

something Aaron May have said, made the hair go up on the back of my neck

a little bit, like, uh, that was me.

Then I would say the first thing you do is say, what, what sacrifice are you

willing to make for a short time to leave some money in the company to go, okay,

what is the next thing I need in order to move up in, in the, you know, revenue?

Move up in profit, uh, move up in adding another affiliate or adding a

new, um, you know, demographic to who I'm trying to attract, whatever it is.

What, what am I willing to do?

Am I willing to sell my nice car or turn it back in?

Or when the lease is up, I'm not gonna get another one and I'll go get a

five or 6-year-old car or 10-year-old car that's still nice and, um, not

have a payment on it, have lower insurance, um, and, and leave an extra

thousand bucks a month in the company.

Am I able to not have this fancy office?

I had this beautiful office one time, beautiful, half of a floor of the

largest office building, 26th floor.

I had half and Prudential Securities had half, they had

all these people in cubicles.

I had like seven people and half of a freaking floor.

You could sit there and, and you know.

Put

across the,

game.

you can.

It was, and it was the stupidest ego thing I ever did.

'cause I always wanted to have my name on the big old door come up

way up in the tower and get off.

And there's the company, there's a beautiful reception and a beautiful

receptionist sitting by the desk.

And guess what?

I got all of it.

I got all of it.

My name on the door, this beautiful young woman, Kylie, I remember this.

She looked like a model.

Super cool girl, 20 years old or something, answering the phones,

greeting people when they came in.

Then they'd come in.

I had this giant office with a conference table in it and

the, you know, the whole wall.

Huge.

I mean, a big room, all windows looking out at the mountains and the cityscape.

Well, it was, it was absolutely stupid that I did that.

Yeah.

What did it get you?

Nothing got me a big old bill, got me a big fat lease bill every month.

And, um, about three years into it, I thought, what the hell am I doing?

I, I checked the box, I had my name on the door, I had the whole setup

and we ended up, um, subletting the space, getting out from under it.

And from then on I thought, I never need that again.

And look where I'm sitting, I'm sitting in my beach house, you know,

in our little library here with

the pig and

Where you live, right?

Like it's not, yeah.

Yeah.

We've, this has been, we built this house here at the beach 24 years

ago and, um, and always had a, a house in town, well in the suburbs.

And then we'd come here and hang out for a month at a time or

a week at a time or whatever.

Matter of fact, the idea for unshackled came here.

'cause we stayed for six weeks, one summer.

And after a while people were going, how are you still there?

How can you still be there?

Well that's what I want to get at is like,

let's go for it.

I'm telling stories and maybe I'm not getting to your meat.

no, no, you're great.

Because I think this is, it's relating to what people experience

and I think that's the big thing.

'cause you definitely have, you know, I want to talk about some of the,

you know, the bits of, of maybe the frameworks that count, but I want

to make sure that, uh, you also go deeper into how this proves out.

You know, you said the ultimate proof of concept.

You have an interesting story there.

Beach.

Beach House is, six weeks is one thing, but how about 14 months and a week?

Oh yeah.

Well, if you wanna go, if you wanna go there right now, I can definitely do it.

So let me just say this, I had had this long run of, of

pretty good successes, right?

And, and, um, we, we'd purchased Laughlin, um, in August of 2001, we

had purchased the land that this house sits on, um, in 2001, got the permits.

I designed the house on a yellow pad, then gave it to an architect to do it,

but I said, here's the house we want.

Cool.

Cool,

Um, they built the house.

Now it's, it's December, 2002 and we had a tradition for many, many,

many years of renting a house and coming down on Christmas afternoon.

So later in the day on December 25th and staying for as many days

as we could afford or justify.

You started out early in our marriage.

Two, two or three nights, and then it kind of got to be like

at four or five or six nights.

And uh, so anyway, we were staying two doors up and uh, I woke up on the

morning of the 26th and I came outside.

This was when I bought it and there was the land, and we bought the land,

and now it's the next Christmas,

Mm-hmm.

First time staying in our beach house.

We just got the keys, it's done.

And I'm standing upstairs, looking out at the ocean, December 27th, 2002.

And I get a call from the receptionist at Prudential Securities

'cause my big office downtown.

And she says, Erin, call your office.

And I thought, well that's never happened before.

I knew the lady, she was a super nice lady.

Um, call your office.

So I said, okay.

I said, what's the matter?

She goes, just call.

So I call and instead of Kylie, that young woman I just described a minute

ago, I get special agent in charge, somebody from the FBI answering the

phone and I said, what's going on?

And they said, we're exercising a search warrant.

Um, I said, is it about me or my companies?

Nope.

It's about this customer of yours that you've been doing business with.

You.

We used to do business, we hadn't for two years at that point.

We'd stopped working with them on the last day of 1999.

So now it's almost 2003.

So we've gone all of 2000, 2001, 2002, not working.

So three years.

Um, and the reason I'd stopped working with him is 'cause I

had concerns about some of his activities that I was observing.

Um, I never saw anything illegal, but I saw stuff that was sneaky

and I thought, eh, maybe it's time to just back off of this.

I still really liked him.

I admired him, but just thought we better back off.

And, um, still like him to this day actually.

So I haven't talked to him for years, but I still think he's an interesting guy.

Anyway, um, they wanted to drill the safe.

They were, they wanted me to give him the combination.

I, I said I didn't want to give him the combination.

They said, we'll just drill it.

I said, well, am I, am I part of this?

No, not at all.

So gimme two hours.

I'll drive into town and I'll open it for you.

Which we did.

And my wife to her credit said, don't call your lawyer.

I'm like, it's not about us.

This is, I, I am not surprised that this is happening and it's not about me.

We haven't done anything wrong.

If I go talk to the people, open the safe.

They're very polite, very apologetic.

We have very limited conversation.

They did ask me two or three questions about, do you know this logo?

Do you know this signature?

Do you know who this person is?

And they were all his general manager, his company's logo, you

know, whatever that it's like nothing.

Four months later I get indicted on conspiracy and in a conspiracy charge.

I thought it meant we conspired.

The government explained no conspiracy is you had to have materially assisted,

even if you didn't know about a crime, if you did something that in some way.

Helped then you can be indicted on conspiracy.

That's so broad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we had formed companies for law firms who were, he was working with

for their clients, Nevada companies.

Nothing illegal.

The judge said that throughout the case, but there's nothing

illegal about that is there.

But the government especially, and this was an IRS case, so it's the DOJ, the

the FBI and, and the criminal enforcement of the IRS doing the investigation.

We fought the case three and a half years.

Um, ran outta money, spent about $2 million in legal fees, ran outta money.

The lawyers tried to get out of the case, my lawyers and, um, the judge

said, no, no, you can't get out.

Yeah.

And they said, well, you can't pay us.

We're like, too bad you're in.

So that was where I got the clever idea to then play chicken with the government.

Just say, we're going to trial.

We're going to trial.

Nope, no, no plea bargain.

I'm going to trial.

Now, before that, I was considering plea offers that I thought were too

big, and they started at seven years and were trying to work their way down.

Finally, I said, I'm gonna go to trial.

I don't care.

I don't care how long it takes.

I didn't do anything wrong.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, scared to death.

Freaking out.

Freaking out inside, trying to be tough outside, like a

total disaster area inside.

Anyway, that got everybody's attention.

All of a sudden, DOJ, you know, went down and said, how about 36 months?

And I thought, okay, at this point, 36 months, you end up doing like

a little less than 30 months.

You know, because of good time and the way they calculate so

that we just need to end this.

It's taking over my whole life.

Can't focus on anything.

They didn't want my business.

They didn't want, they never froze bank accounts, never took a passport.

There was no fraud.

There was no restitution.

Nobody lost any money.

It was just this weird deal.

So we did the plea bargain.

We went sentencing.

The judge reduced it down even further to 18 months, which means you actually

serve 14 months in a week in minimum.

Security is what it, and then you have a little halfway house

time and then you're done.

Hmm.

There's way more to the story, but for the interest of time, I will just say this

off, I went and so did my business partner for 14 months and change to prison.

You can't have one phone call about business.

Can't talk business at all.

Can't write letters about business.

Uh, there was no email at that point.

Um, there is now, but even then, everything's monitored.

No business, you cannot do any business.

Wow.

I didn't know that.

no phone call, no, no meetings, no nothing.

No nothing.

If your system doesn't work without you, it'll all just die.

Thankfully, the same principles that I teach about we do in our companies,

it's not this fluffy, conceptual thing.

This is what I've been doing for 40 years in business.

Right?

And so

you said ultimate proof of concept when you can go to prison.

And my take home pay for that full year I was in prison was $974,000.

So if you can do that now, I'm not saying this just magically happened.

We had a team of people in place.

We left my wife as the, as the president.

mm-hmm.

Speaks volumes about my wife because we had the founder of WebMD

and the CFO of Intel, who are my friend and my partner's friend.

Um, both say they would be, they would look over the company for us, take

care of it, didn't want any money, just as a solidarity thing would help us.

My partner said the person I would most like to be left in charge,

if she's willing, was my stay at home wife, stay at home mom,

wife with a bunch of little kids.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And she did.

And to her credit, um, she did a very good job of keeping track of

stuff and making some hard decisions against very challenging odds.

Yeah.

The point is the sy, she didn't know how to need to know

everything about the company.

'cause the system was built.

The team was built.

She just had to be there to go.

You know, who's gonna sign the big check to the IRS?

We had a tax bill, and I remember her talking to me on the prison phone and

saying, it's like, you know, $400,000.

I mean, does that sound right before I signed this check?

You know,

That's pretty important.

you know, um, but she was, she had the presence of mind and the maturity and

the intelligence to look at things and go, that seems like maybe we could change

this, or, I don't think they're actually doing what they're supposed to be doing.

You know?

'cause the system was built and she was smart enough to be able to read

the, read the, the, the documents and understand what's going on.

So I did, I'm not saying that I magically did this alone,

but if you leave all your people and you've been the only one with

the keys to the kingdom, you're the one, you've always been the end, the

last word, you're, you're machine can fall apart very quickly or.

Get stolen away from you.

Right.

Yeah.

So I mean, you, it had to be set up prior to all of this, and

I mean, it's just fascinating.

Yeah.

Just the fact that you literally had your hands tied, you know,

all in all ways, and you had no.

Wait, the fact that it all ran and it's still around it, you were Yeah.

Over

$900,000 take

didn't get ruined.

The marriage didn't get ruined, the employees stayed on.

I had two, my two vice presidents threatened.

You can either be a witness or you could be a co-conspirator.

They were both threatened with jail time by grand juries.

They still work for me today, all these years later.

Interesting.

Wow.

Yeah.

Um, the law firms, the account, we didn't lose anybody 'cause we'd built a good

reputation, but the system had to work.

And I know we're getting short on time.

Um, do you have any, any clarifying questions or do you

want any specific bullet points?

yeah.

I'm curious on, um, well, I'm thinking of like with that 14 months in a week, like

what, did you have any big aha thing?

I mean, I figured you just had so much time to kind of just, you know, marinate

on what has been, but did anything new, fresh come out, um, that, that

you're applying to your life still?

well let me give you the downer message.

okay

That's okay too.

Yeah,

I wasn't afraid to drive in that day in 2002 'cause I believed

that my behavior had been legal in alignment, not in the gray areas.

Actually bending over backwards to tell people, these are the rules.

You know, you're doing this thing and here's a white paper that

talks about this is after tax, or this is how you have to report, or

here's a form you need to fill out.

Right.

I, we did all that stuff and it was all in the 400 boxes of discovery.

Um, the downer thing I learned there was, um, I learned that I couldn't

just trust my government anymore, that I needed to be, um, that, that was

another angle that I hadn't considered that could come after me or hurt me

for things that even they said, we know you didn't know about the crime.

It is just part of the system, right?

It's just

And yeah.

And it was never about this man, this human, it was a file that

was moving on a conveyor belt.

Nobody was trying to be mean to me.

It was, I was a name with, connected to a thing in a file.

The file had to be completed.

The completion put me into a, a place, and,

Mm-hmm.

and then when it was over, they were like, Hey, we're glad, you

know, glad you landed on your feet.

Glad everything worked out okay.

You know, and, and so that was the big thing I learned.

The other thing I learned was, um, when you, when you've done the work to get

yourself organized, to not only have a good team, but empower the team, let them,

even if they don't have legal ownership, have emotional ownership and a say so

that they become creative and innovative and collaborative with one another so

that they, they, they want to give you.

I heard a guy named Keith Cunningham say one time we've done some work together.

And he said, he said, when you hire people, you hire their arms and legs.

The goal is to win their heads and their hearts.

And I've strived to do that.

That's why our average tenure of our employees is over 14 years.

People stay working for us.

I've got my, my VP of operations been almost 36 years with us.

Dang, that says something right

and he's brilliant and he keeps giving his all.

He's not bored.

He's not marking time because he knows, he has tremendous freedom

to, to do things, to innovate.

And, and when you have people that trust each other, they come up with

their own ideas and they figure out things you would've never thought of.

And they come back to say, what about this?

And you go, I love it.

What do you want me to do?

Do this.

Okay, cool.

Let's go.

You know?

And, um, when you have that kind of an environment, it can, it can survive, even

thrive through all the ups and downs.

Just at Laughlin, I've had the.com bubble bursting.

I've had the real estate growth, you know, from all the, all the incentives,

low interest rates that happened after the.com bubble burst, then the real

estate marketing burst I had, um, I just had come off of Y 2K with all my other

companies, you know, 'cause I've been doing this since 90, um, seven, right?

So I'd gone through Black Monday.

I've been through all that stuff.

I've been through the COVID, I've been through, I've been through

all this stuff over the years.

And you know what, if you have a good system and you have good

people, you'll just ride the waves.

And the other thing I'll leave for your listeners,

Yeah.

part of what I've decided was I'm gonna be the biggest recipient of

value from these things I build.

I'm gonna get Rich doing this.

And I have, I have done that.

And when we had the um oh eight crash.

Yeah.

We looked at, we lost about two thirds of our revenue in in a year.

Hmm.

My partner and I were by far the highest paid people in the company.

We made a decision to take a 75% pay cut, right?

And not fire anybody.

Not let anybody go.

Wow.

Cool.

We quit doing the match on the 401k, but we kept, but we kept paying

health insurance, kept doing all that.

We both ended up short selling our homes,

Hmm.

right?

'cause we took a big pay cut.

Everybody was down in nine, 10, the end of eight, nine and 10 were bad years

in business unless you had a bunch of cash and you were buying everything.

But for people like us who were counting on all these business owners

that we did services for, we just went like somebody turned off the spigot.

Right?

Um.

But guess what happened in 11?

Business started coming back and the team was there and could receive.

And you know what people that you hold onto and they know the revenues in the

toilet, but you keep them employed,

Hmm.

do you think those people feel loyal?

Oh,

Oh, man.

Yeah.

Oh

And when that business comes in, they're ready.

And if they need to work late or come in on a Saturday, they do it.

And, and as things came back, we took more money again.

And, you know, if, if you treat your team, your company, not as your, um,

like your obligation or your, your pain in the butt responsibility, but

as important assets that you like a machine, that you're gonna keep it

oiled up and you're gonna keep it, ma, you're gonna do maintenance on

it, you're gonna make sure it works.

You treat your employees like your most important asset in the company.

Um.

You'll, you'll be able to survive over years.

I'm now,

how many years?

40. I started in 1983, so 42 years of making a payroll.

There you go,

That's real employees.

That's not me selling some.

That's me with employees on W2 paychecks.

You can

right.

That's not just working for yourself

you can do it over time.

Hmm.

Right systems, right mindset, right partners.

My life partner and my business partner have been great.

And, and, um, work towards a specific outcome.

If you know where you're going, it's much easier to get there.

If you kind of know generally where you want to go, you end up groping around.

Blind in the forest

Someone else is probably leading you, right?

no, I'm saying if you don't, well, you might be.

Blown around by different ideas.

But if you know, if you know what the outcome is, that's what I said

earlier in this interview, know what the outcome is, why are you doing it,

and what's the reward you plan to get?

Not just then, but along the way.

What's the reward you get for the risk you're taking?

If you, if you think that way, you'll make very rapid progress toward the outcome.

'cause you know exactly where you're going.

You don't even look at other crap that gets in the way.

You don't worry about all the extraneous ideas.

I've got this big idea.

No, no, no.

You're here, you're focused.

And when this thing works like a Swiss watch, it's just, it's a machine.

Then you can go, if you're set up right with like unshackled, now

you can do this the next thing.

And once you have this one working where you're.

Foundation is solid.

You can get involved in all kinds of cool stuff and take more risk because your

foundation is taken care of and people get too diverted by too many things.

I always say get one thing really working well before you do the next one.

So is that why you, you refer to Laughlin?

Because it is that one thing, right?

It's that one that you've kind of had for, what'd you say, 29 years, 30 years?

Uh,

I bought it 29 years.

I've had it for 24 years

almost.

Exactly.

'cause we bought it in August, so I think next week it'll be the 24th year.

Cool.

So yeah.

And that's the one consistent thing, but you also own

percentages of all these other

Oh.

I make money from a lot of companies.

Um, and I, and I make a lot of money speaking and so I'm, Laughlin is

the thing most people know me for.

Uh, it's not always my most valuable thing I'm doing.

Mm-hmm.

But it is, but it is solid and I get to meet a lot of cool people.

You know, I met, uh, Duffy and, and, and Greg Reid, Scott Duffy and

Greg Reid because I was out speaking on behalf of Laughlin at an event.

All three of us were speakers.

That's how I met them.

And so that's the thing, it's like, yeah, if you can generate

or you know, create one thing that then almost creates its own little

ecosystem of referrals and networks.

'cause I know you're a big referral guide, deal maker, and, but then like

it presents opportunities, like you said, you're given equity percentage.

And, uh, what you play, you said you call yourself, you're always

in the chairman role, right?

Or something that's not on the org chart.

Like you're not, you're not being called on day to

I am at the top of the org chart.

I'm the chairman of the board.

Yep.

We always have to have a president or, or general manager, whoever the boss is.

You're reporting, they're reporting to you, right?

Then the, you have your lieutenants, or your generals, whatever you wanna

call 'em, and then you have your org chart by, let me, do you have

time for me to give you a couple things for people to take away?

Please.

Yeah.

Let's, let's do

it

right.

Let me just give you, let me give you the seven critical

steps that I teach in unshackled.

Okay?

The first one is, begin with the end in mind.

Define in, in nauseating detail exactly what life will be for

you when you hit the that goal.

I mean, where do you live?

How much money's in the bank?

Who are you hanging out with?

What does the company look like?

Just what is it?

And you'll, if you keep your eye on that and you read that vision statement

every day, you gotta keep it short.

Keep it to one page, record it so you can hear the whole thing in

two and a half minutes, you know?

But it, your subconscious will live there.

Your, your subconscious doesn't know the difference between real and imagined.

Right.

That's why we, we, we jump when the shark comes up and jaws right, we're

in a movie theater in our house.

We know there's no shark logically, but our subconscious is in the moment

and believes the shark is real.

So we react.

If you can keep your subconscious mind just fixed every day on this outcome,

you will start getting it very fast.

Number two, what am I great at and what do I suck at?

Okay?

So I'm only gonna do stuff I'm good at.

Anything I'm crummy at, I gotta get somebody else to do it.

And maybe it's part-time, maybe it's a consultant, maybe it's a va, I don't know.

But stay in your freaking lane.

'cause if you try to do a bunch of stuff you suck at, you're, you are gonna quit

doing what you're good at and you're gonna probably make a lot of mistakes

with things you should never be touching.

Like I should never touch accounting or information, you know it.

I should never touch it.

I should not try to mess with my, I shouldn't set up my email in my computer.

I suck at this stuff, but I know where I'm great.

I'm a good presenter, I'm a good speaker, I'm a good, uh, I make good deals.

I'm good at biz dev.

I'm good at that.

I'm good at seeing the big picture.

Stay there.

That's where I stay.

That's number two.

Three is design the company on an org chart so that it, it describes,

it demonstrates the company at the time of hitting the goal.

Not what it is today, but it's like if you're gonna set up a baseball team,

you know, you need at least nine players, right?

So if you say, well, okay, I have a pitcher, that's what I've, or

I've got a right fielder, okay.

Put them on there.

But I know I need a pitcher, a catcher, first, second, third,

shortstop, and I, and I need left and center field as well, right?

I need these nine things.

I only have one of them right now.

So then as I'm going along, I'm gonna go, okay, of the nine or

the eight missing pieces, what's the most important one to add now?

Hm.

Mm-hmm.

then you fill that.

So you're always looking at going, I know I'm gonna need basically this thing, and I

only have these three pieces of these 20.

What's the next Right hire?

What's the next right?

Move When you, I had the guy running m and a for Boeing

Uh huh

who took the course, and he said, Aaron, I learned about org charts in

high school, in undergrad, in grad school, and I used them every day buying

and selling companies with Boeing.

Nobody ever taught me how to use an org chart like that.

Wow.

It makes perfect sense.

You're starting with the ending goal or in in mind, so build

Everything is leading to the outcome.

It's all number three is use a formula that Steven Covey taught me.

Um, D-G-R-A-C.

Desired results, guidelines, resources, accountability, and Consequences.

If your job description is, here's the desired result, here are your guidelines,

here are the resources we provide, here's how you're gonna show accountability,

reports, meetings, whatever, and here's consequences for success and failure.

Then anytime you're dealing with your, your team member, you go, let's

go back to your job description.

Read it to me.

Where, what's going on based on what I'm seeing and what's in the job description.

Oh, yeah, right there.

Okay.

So what do you, what do you need to do about that?

Now, I'm not gonna tell you what to do.

What are you going to do about this problem?

yeah.

Oh, I'm gonna do this.

Okay, that's acceptable.

Consequences for success could be more money.

Title, promotion, consequences of failure could be retraining,

repositioning in the company could be replacing them, could be firing them.

Yep.

Number four, you want to talk about having scoreboards so that everybody on the whole

team knows every day how we're doing.

We always know individually and collectively how we're doing.

Number five, we talk about building an intentional

culture, not an organic culture.

Organic culture will always go to the lowest common denominator.

It'll be the worst.

Complainer, gossiper, pain in the ass in the company.

You will go down if you have an intentional culture.

This is how we do it.

This is why we do it.

This is how we treat each other.

This is how we treat the client.

This is why what we do matters.

This, and we get the, get the employees involved in it and demonstrating it and

giving awards and giving acknowledgement.

Um, based on our culture.

It, I'll tell you what, people that come into the culture and

are not a good fit will leave.

It doesn't matter how good they're at the job, they'll leave.

They won't feel comfortable.

Once you build the culture, you don't need to be there anymore because the

team goes, well, that's not how we do it.

We do it like this.

We talk to each other like this.

We show up for the client like this.

We use words like this.

We fulfill our promises like this.

You don't need to babysit it anymore because it's ingrained

and the people that are there want to be there 'cause they like it,

Right?

Then you need to understand your financials, your balance sheet, your

statement of cash flow, and your p and l, and you need two p and Ls.

One that's the regular p and l that you're using for taxes, and one is the reality

check p and l that shows all the below the line stuff that you as the owner get

your cell phone, you know, your loans, your car allowance, you know the cash that

you travel, all the things you're getting and benefiting from, that you really love

that you're getting from the company.

But you need a reality check that you look at and go, Hmm, am I taking too much out?

Yeah.

So, so when you're ready for that windfall right, you have the cash

flow back to what you said earlier.

the last part is empowering your management team so that they

can function without you always knocking 'em off at the knees.

You know, if you cut 'em off at the knees all the time, pretty soon they will just

wait for you to tell 'em what to do.

Hmm.

If you celebrate risk, celebrate mistakes, learn from the mistakes.

Don't keep repeating them over and over, but have a, a culture that says, Hey, I'm

so glad you tried something different.

Um, remember this folks, the only way to give exceptional

service is to make exceptions.

Yeah.

That means your team has to have the permission to make an exception.

mm-hmm.

Right.

Think about that.

yeah.

Most companies don't let their po they, they, if you don't follow

the process, the SOP or whatever.

You're in trouble.

I'm like, no.

If you can solve a problem right now, do it.

If I don't like your solution, we'll go back and evaluate, was

your solution better than mine?

Maybe we should change our process or procedure, or, thanks for doing that.

Here's why I want to keep it this way.

Here's some of the results that could, could happen from the

choice, but good for you for trying.

Good for you for solving the problem.

Let's evaluate, talk about it, make it into a learning moment for

everybody of how we can improve.

Either change our processes or reinforce our processes.

And, but if you're too, um, egotistical to think you're the only one that

knows what the hell's going on, you're never gonna have good people with you.

You're always gonna have a crummy group.

And that's where you gotta get that longevity.

Like you said, they're gonna go with you on the ups and downs throughout it all.

Like, like, uh, the person you have there for what, 37

years.

36 years.

36? There you

he's our chief strategy guy.

He's the one that, all the lawyers, all the accountants, all the investment

funds, everybody's like, I know I have this rep, but I can still talk to Brent.

Right.

it.

You need to have multiple of those, but at least one.

I mean, that just shows the culture's tight and, um, yeah,

can weather literally any storm?

So I think, uh, Aaron, this is, this is awesome.

I'm gonna be, I'm gonna deep dive into Unshackled, um, get the book

by the way, and actually how, how do people get the book and then

also go deeper with what you got.

The, my encouragement would be, um, you could certainly go to Amazon and buy it.

I always encourage people to go to Barnes and Noble and the, and that's for.

Maybe a silly reason.

I think it's cool that we still have at least one major book chain out there that

you can go in and look at books and flip through stuff and, um, and you're gonna

probably pay two or three more dollars at Barnes and Noble than you will at Amazon.

I love Amazon.

I work with Amazon.

Amazon uses the software based on unshackled in their, um, medical division.

That's one of my, their chief medical officers, one of our students.

Um,

but, but, um, so I love Amazon buy from Amazon, but I like Barnes Noble Plus.

Barnes and Noble has me on a book tour right now, so I

want, I wanna support them.

I like that they're the last company standing as a major bookseller.

Major book.

Yeah.

So go in there if you wanna see some books, touch books.

Yeah.

Um, get it in Barnes Noble.

Cool.

Um, what's your, what's your website though, just so people

They can go to Laughlin USA and if they want to connect with me or the

team or ask a question or find out about the course or find out about

what other services, 'cause we're a, we're a major asset protection company.

You know, we're, we're, we've been all these years helping people not only start

a business about protect their business.

And, um, so then just write to me at aaronYoung@laughlinusa.com.

Cool.

Aaron, this is, this is so cool, and thanks for being so open too, and, and

giving with stories, lessons and all that.

Uh, last thing, like what are you, what are you most excited

for in like, the years to come?

And we'll just like kind of wrap on this.

I am very involved with several companies, uh, in crypto, in

ai, and in advanced wound care.

And I'm working at very, very high levels on all three of those industries.

And, um, I am so excited to see, to be witnessing and your, of course, your ai.

Right?

So, you know, this, um, I'm so excited to be witness to a fundamental shift

and how the world is gonna work, how money works, how businesses grow,

how information is a, a accessed and distributed, um, quantum computing.

I'm not involved with that, but I'm thrilled that the industries I'm involved

in will all be significantly impacted by quantum computing that I'm 61, my

dad and mom both died at 80 years old.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

My doctor just told me, he said, unless you step out in front of a

bus or do some crazy, get in some terrible accident, the odds of you

living a very highly productive.

Active life over a hundred years old is, is in your, you are gonna have

that if you just don't do something so dumb that you kill yourself.

But health wise, we are going to be, cancer will be cured.

All these, you know, heart disease, all this stuff is, they'll be able

to drop microbots in and fix things.

You're not gonna have to cut your body open for most kind of repairs.

I mean, the world is such an exciting place and if you've, if you position

yourself where you become successful enough to get invited into rooms where

a higher level of conversation is taking place, and then if you're successful

enough there to go to the next level.

You know, right now I have two good friends who are part of the World

Economic Forum who've built massive multi-billion dollar companies and.

I'm not invited to that room yet, but I'm hanging out with them, right.

And I'm, I see opportunities where I'm gonna get into that even higher

level conversation to, it starts by getting something, working well

enough that you get freedom and you have some, a little bit of money.

You don't need to be real rich.

You need to have enough curiosity about the world and enough money

to be able to leave day to day and do something else that you start to

elevate and the world becomes much more interesting and much smaller.

And the people that you know, where there's big crossover, you know, um,

when I entered, introduced the chief medical officer at Amazon, one of the

big, the biggest seller in the world, one of the biggest companies, to the guy

that created telemedicine and built his company to $34 billion and annual revenue.

When I was able to put those two guys together, and they were both going.

You know him, you know him.

I'm like, I do know him.

And the only reason is because I got my act together.

So I had time to go do other more interesting things, meet interesting

people, get out into the me into the world, show up in front of humans.

Don't just be online all the time.

It's how I know you.

'cause we both went somewhere and stood face to face, eye to eye and talked.

that's

if I could give one piece of encouragement is what my dad always taught me.

My dad was a great sales guy and beloved.

And I said, what's the trick all these people respect you so much, dad?

And he said, you gotta get out and see the people.

Mm-hmm.

Go out there with something to say, something to offer in the conversation.

You'll be amazed at how big your life gets

Yeah.

Aint that the truth?

That's how I created my business from the very beginning.

It was like, I'm just gonna go to conferences and start talking with people.

And that's literally all I did.

And, you know, went into debt for it.

Always the goal was to, I just wanna break even on this trip.

Get one client, whatever it might be.

You know, it's, that was my target and just kept stacking.

Uh, but to this day, yeah, you can't live behind your computers.

They all, and with ai, you know, it gets so easy to just get all the information,

but you know, the human connection, that's what I'm talking about all the time,

And you've gotta, and you've gotta challenge what you got from ai.

Is this, because I've had two different magazines, write articles about me.

90% of it was right.

10% of it was like, who are they talking about?

That's

not me.

That's somebody else.

That's, they're not, they're saying, I did this, I did not do that.

That had nothing to, and I'm talking about started this company or

went to school here or whatever.

It's like there, there's a, um.

If there's a father and son, Aaron Young out there who are both in prison for the

rest of their lives, for murder, there's, um, a football player named Aaron Young.

There's a musician named Aaron Young.

Um, there's a lot of people named Aaron Young who if AI just goes out and gathered

stuff that seems like it would be me,

Yeah.

you know?

So I'm not knocking ai.

I use it every single day.

I believe in it.

I love it.

it's not perfect.

uh, but it's, but there, there is something about looking somebody in the

eye, having a human conversation with them, creating your notes, and then if

you want AI to clean 'em up, if you've got a really good idea and you want AI to,

you know, expound on it or expand on it,

mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah,

But don't, don't, don't abdicate your own thinking to a machine because then

you'll become the slave of the machine, instead of the machine being the

magnifier of the things you are doing.

And that's how I look at AI as a way to magnify.

My goals

Absolutely.

It makes you super human and what you're best at, what you know, and enhances that.

Yeah.

Versus a shortcut to not have to think.

Mm-hmm.

And I, yeah, that's where I worry, where there's a lot of other, probably

not us listening to the show po you know, but you know, the people

looking for the shortcuts, the not having to really use their minds.

There's definitely gonna be an interesting handful of years ahead of us where

there's probably a split happening.

Um, I don't know.

It's gonna be interesting.

That's a whole nother conversation.

It'll be, it'll be a, it'll be obvious stuff until it becomes not obvious at all.

It becomes so built into the fabric of what we do.

We're no longer thinking, oh, I'm gonna pick up chat GPT and ask, you know, posit

some question or give an assignment.

Yeah.

just, I, it'll become just built into everything.

yeah, yeah.

Uh, and we will not have the chance to influence the way we can now.

Now is the time,

Now is the time and you're at the cutting edge.

So I'm delighted you would bring me on to a such a progressive program

with such a cool company and tell you about my ideas of just how to

structurally build the foundation.

Doesn't matter how, how big of a company you wanna build.

If you do these things, your odds of success just go up exponentially.

Absolutely.

It's timeless.

Yeah.

Thank you, Aaron.

I appreciate you being so open, man.

So we'll, we'll connect again and, and, uh, let's go on this radio

together, you know, it's gonna be

I love it.

I love it.

All right,

Have a good, one.

Thank you.

Thank you too.