MIKE'D UP! with Mike DiCioccio

0:00:00 There's nothing more rewarding than being a creator. I think that is the biggest difference between successful people and people that are living a life of wanting more is the people that are stuck in consumption mode versus creation mode.

0:00:27 Our guest today is a US Army veteran serving in Iraq from 2003 to 2004, where he learned the true meaning of discipline and working for the good of the team.

0:00:37 He was instrumental in growing a social media management company into an Inc. 500 fastest growing company as one of their first hires.

0:00:46 He also built an operation system and the processes behind it then increased revenue by over two million dollars and only two years for digital advertising agency placing them on the Inc.

0:00:58 5,000 fastest growing companies and back-to-back years. And he's also worked with dozens of small businesses to improve their e-brand and increase the revenue generated for the review sites and and social media profiles.

0:01:11 Welcome to the show Founder and CEO of Hashtag Smart Business Consulting, Paul Macawitz. Yeah, pleasure to be here, Mike. Super happy to be here.

0:01:22 Yeah, man, I've been excited to get you on. We talked a couple of times and now we're bringing the audience to this conversation.

0:01:28 So, really excited for you. I hope you don't mind that I did the Hashtag symbol, like the SNL skit or the late night with Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake had that little skit, so.

0:01:38 Yeah, and you can't go wrong with it. You're bringing a little pop culture into everything you do, right? Social media is about engagement.

0:01:45 That's why we're here, just to give people something to smile up. You got hashtag in the name of your brand, like you got to do the hashtag, right?

0:01:52 So, some people will get the reference, other people are gonna think we're weirder than we already are. So, hey, that's fine too.

0:01:59 Thank you guys for being with us. If you're watching on YouTube, appreciate you being here. Apple Spotify, Google Hub, you'll listen to your podcast.

0:02:06 Paul and I both are grateful for you hanging out with us today and learning a little bit more about his story.

0:02:12 I want you guys to know that I have everything for Paul clickable in the description and also the show notes.

0:02:17 So if you're looking for his website, it's hashtag dashsmart.com with hashtag spelled out. But you don't even have to worry about spelling it because I made that clickable for you as well as Paul's personal social media.

0:02:28 So he's gonna be really easy to find. Paul, here's what I like to do. Some people are tuning in and learning about for the first time today.

0:02:36 I'd love to hear your origin story, you know, from obviously up to the point of joining the military, a huge moment in your life, right?

0:02:44 And then how after that, you decided to launch a successful marketing company. So there's a lot there. I mean, unpack it for us.

0:02:51 Yeah, yeah. You know, we don't have two hours, three hours here, which is how long it takes to tell this full story sometimes, because I have one of those odd, meandering, circuitous career paths.

0:03:03 So I grew up in Buffalo, New York, you know, diehard bills fans still to this day. Home town boy, I got my life shirt Buffalo.

0:03:10 Life church buffalo shirt on. So I grew up Buffalo. What's a college for a year? Had no idea what I wanted to do.

0:03:17 Change my major four times as a freshman and showed up in my parents' house and said, hey, I'd join the military.

0:03:24 I'd leave in two weeks. You know, I love you guys. See you in a couple of years. Pause right there though.

0:03:29 Like, what was, I mean, you don't just magically join. So where was where did you get recruited or was there a table somewhere?

0:03:35 What was that like? Not even so I had a we'll say like delusions of Granger growing up like I thought I was gonna play the NBA until you know I was a freshman in college and I was barely I was really not even that great a player like I was a fine player I had certainly sales ability.

0:03:53 I have the gift for gab. I could talk to people all day I'm very relatable very easy to have a conversation with my wife says that's one of her favorite things about me is she could take me to one of her fancy Beverly Hills parties and just kind of leave me and be like, I hope you find out.

0:04:08 He's gonna be fine, yeah, humming with somebody. Yeah, and so I just didn't know how to apply any of those things.

0:04:16 So I went everywhere from early education major to communications major to marketing major. So like I really just had no idea.

0:04:26 And I was working at D***** Boarding Goods. I always really loved golf. I didn't play it in high school. I played volleyball and basketball and volleyball happened the same season.

0:04:36 So I never played for school. I've never seen you in person. Are you a taller glass of water? No, not really.

0:04:43 I'm like five, nine. I mean, usually, okay. All right. So I'm thinking basketball, volleyball usually, you know, have height, but that not always.

0:04:51 I mean, you look at stuff. Curious. I was a point guard in a setter. So I played the two short positions in both.

0:04:56 Yeah. That's cool, though. But yeah, growing up, it was, uh, I mean, we had Alamedos is the golf course that he's to play at all the time in Buffalo.

0:05:03 And I'd throw my clubs on my back and ride my bike about two miles, you know, play some golf and then bike home.

0:05:09 Like, I was a crazy kid, but I really enjoyed the sport. And so I was working for D*** Sporting Goods and working their golf department.

0:05:20 And I was very, very good at sales with D*****. Like I even went back to working at D*** Sporting Goods and we'll get to that.

0:05:25 But I was just selling the guy golf clubs and he's asked me about my life asking what I'm doing I'm like, you know, I really don't know I said it's I truly I like no idea as like I've changed my major a bunch of times I love working I love sales like I think maybe I'll go into something like that you

0:05:43 know bigger and he just dropped it on me is like I'm about serving your country and my father was in the National Guard my grandfather was in World War II he was a tanker in World War II So I've always been very patriotic.

0:05:58 I've always felt, you know, I would like to serve my country in some way, whether it was like maybe a political office at some point or something, but then this kind of dropped of me and it fell at the right time, and I had nothing better to do, and I'll honestly.

0:06:12 Yeah. Interesting. I think there's a lot of people that are tuning in that either know somebody, they have a similar story, or maybe it's themselves nodding their head right now.

0:06:21 You that kind of felt like that was there, you know, something they can do to try to find their way.

0:06:28 Like maybe something will come through my experience that, well, you know what I mean? And that kind of happened for you because I know you've turned a lot of the disciplines and things that you've learned while in the army and I want to pause for a second and say thank you so much for your service.

0:06:42 We cannot thank you enough. I mean, that's, you know, we have the holidays and stuff where everybody puts on their social media but it's literally a 365 day gratitude thing for me.

0:06:53 You know, that makes our country great and keeps us safe. So I just greatly appreciate you doing that. Yeah, because the big thing for me too is after 9-11.

0:07:03 Like 9-11 happened in September 2001. I enlisted as soon as I finished that school year. So I enlisted in June 2002.

0:07:14 So it was, you know, we had that patriotism I'm kind of flowing through the country at that time and I felt like I wanted to be part of it.

0:07:23 You were fueled up, yeah. So I did read this, still a little homework on you, Paul, that one of the major lessons that you learned from your time in the army was in the quote as efficiency is key to the success of a mission while minimizing losses.

0:07:38 I think that's really well said. Can you elaborate on that? I think one of the big things that I've certainly learned in my career, whether it was military or even working for other digital marketing companies is you learn often what to do, but you often learn what not to do.

0:07:52 That's like sports too, right? It minimizing your mistakes. Quarterback has that same thing, tennis player, same thing. So even when I enlisted, I went and I took the Armed Services Vocational aptitude battery, that's the big test you have to take to get in there.

0:08:05 And I scored in the top one percent. So I was like, smart dude, like I naturally intelligent, but certainly wasn't applying myself.

0:08:14 You know, if you saw my college transcript, And so I went into the recruiting office and was like, you know, what do you got for like two years?

0:08:22 Yeah, and then there's some garbage jobs. And I was like, well, what do you got for three years? And they're like, well, the one job you qualify for here is computer operator for field artillery.

0:08:30 You know, they need some smart people that are good on computers that can do the fire direction controls and make sure we're not blowing up anything we're not supposed to and you know, pretty much be like the control point for artillery units.

0:08:44 And I was like, you know, that sounds interesting. All right, I'll take that one. So when I joined, I did basic in my AIT, and not even two months after I got to my duty station, I was already on my way to Iraq.

0:08:59 So I really, you know, I kind of knew my unit. I didn't know them all that well, but also like I was 19.

0:09:06 You're still figuring out like who you even were. I guess I just turned 20. Where high school like less than two years earlier.

0:09:12 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to get prior. Right. Yeah. When I got deployed. And the sergeant that I had, a lot of people, there's a funny phrase in the military, if you get promoted to your level of incompetence.

0:09:26 So some people like, you just get promoted over time, right? Because you're just in a role. And at some point, you know, your time comes.

0:09:34 And so they focus on like the floor of somebody like, this is the least we can get out of them.

0:09:39 So we're going to know, So if we promote them, they have to, at a bare minimum, provide us this, right?

0:09:45 Is that kind of their thought process on it? Yeah, for the most part, there's just some people that you meet in the military where you're just like, okay, well, you're not gonna be a Sergeant Major anywhere.

0:09:55 Like you kind of understand some people's limitations. Just like in a business, man. You know, there's gonna be different people that can be in your CFL and some people just don't have that.

0:10:04 And they may be better as your frontline sales person or your customer service reps, right? Yeah, I go through the same thing today, running a team with us, and kind of have to do that evaluation of people and say, like, can I put this person in a Let them in the best position for success, for their 

0:10:21 personality traits, right? I think that's so important running a business is the people, you know, who not how, right? My sergeant in the military, he was a super nice guy, really liked him as a human, but he just, he's constantly getting in trouble.

0:10:35 like I was always kind of like his guard almost because the my unit we're called the fire direction control unit we were the smart guys in artillery because you got you really didn't have to score anything on the aspect of to be what we have fixed it affectionately called the gun bunnies pull string 

0:10:54 go boom you know their job was not very hard like load load around it to a how it was or pull the string.

0:11:02 Our job was like taking a call from say like a forward observer or an infantry member and they'd call us and say, Hey, we're getting, we're taking fire, you know, they could give it to us like in Mills, which is kind of like degrees to give us a direction from where they are, or they could give us a 

0:11:19 point and say like up on that ridge, you know, two kilometers away, two clicks. And we'd have to put into a computer system and like figure out where they are and figure out as the, as a round is traveling down range, it drifts to the right because it's rotating that way, figuring out, you know, what

0:11:35 type of round we should use, figure out how much gunpowder has to go into it. So we basically use a computer program to figure this stuff out in about 25 to 30 seconds.

0:11:45 You're doing analytics is like you do now for running a social media ad. Her Google ads, you were doing, you were doing that out in the field.

0:11:52 Yeah, it's luckily a lot less destructive there was a lot of A.B. testing's because you shoot that first round and be like no not far enough another click I'm like okay type into the computer like figure it out and let it go so that was basically my my job in the military and we were the very

0:12:08 first artillery unit into Iraq so we were providing a down-range fire for quite a few units that were kind of going door-to-door and clearing towns, clearing cities and doing convoy missions.

0:12:23 And then I spent about a year, I got extended choice while I was there. It was supposed to be a six month deployment, turned it to nine months, turned it to a year.

0:12:32 And then even when I got back, I still had to do one last convoy mission. So I was actually there a little bit longer than even the rest of my unit.

0:12:39 How are you able to stay and touch with your family? I was wondering this. I've had a couple friends and family members in the army, but I've never talked to them much about their time there.

0:12:48 I kind of feel like it's something private where they don't always want to rehash some memories and stuff. But are you willing to share like what it was like, you know, reaching back out to your family is different than, you know, we grew up seeing people writing letters, but that was a technology back

0:13:04 then, were you able to do like video calls with your family? No. None of that though. Well, when I was there, it was it was the Wild West, right, like we, we took over 15 years to go about 20 years close to it 20 almost 20 years yeah yeah because I was deployed in in 03 at that time I mean we took over

0:13:26 an abandoned cigarette factory in like the northeast corner of Baghdad so we've called it Camp Marburg was the so yeah it was an abandoned cigarette factory and I mean I can tell Army stories you know all day but at But at this point, most of them are rehashing stories.

0:13:46 I think my brain has done a good job. I'm just kind of blocking out a lot of it. I don't really think about it.

0:13:51 But I used to have bad dreams for a little bit, but I mean, I'm fine, right? I'm very optimistic that I've got a wonderful wife and kid.

0:13:59 I've got things to focus on in the future, not in the past. So I don't really think about all that much.

0:14:04 But as far as communicating with my family, at that time, we didn't have computers for the probably like the first nine months we were there so eventually they built us like this little computer lab where we could go and at least chat with people.

0:14:21 Still couldn't really do video call at that time. Sure. Yeah we had a satellite phone that you would line up and you'd wait in line for like an hour to two hours and you'd get 15 minutes on the phone.

0:14:34 So we had a satellite phone and then tons of letters. I mean I still have a box like a shoebox overflowing full of letters.

0:14:42 You know like you weren't obviously married at that point but were you with your now wife where you guys dating back then and no we didn't meet until I was in my early 30s so oh wow okay I had a lot of growing up so a lot of letters probably back to your parents and you had siblings and stuff maybe yeah

0:14:59 yeah I'm one six kids one of six kids so lots of siblings I also have a very very close group of friends still to this day you know a lot of the guys that play basketball with and volleyball with and some of them I've known since I was like five years old and we went to grade school together and we still

0:15:17 play fantasy football. You the touch with them as well. Oh yeah. You shoot them a note. Yeah, I was actually controlling my fantasy football team through letters to a buddy that was running it well.

0:15:27 So Iraq. Wow. Yeah. I didn't trust. That's cool though. It didn't do very well that year though. Never know how he was watching that waiver wire.

0:15:34 He might have just been like, oh, what do you know? Oh, you know, Randy Moss is just going to slide his way onto my roster.

0:15:41 I was also usually like a week or two behind as far as like what was going on in the NFL.

0:15:47 You know, it's not like, yeah, that's cool that you got to play and like stay engaged with your friends. Yeah, like as best as best you could.

0:15:54 But yeah, so I did three years in the military. I knew I was getting out. When we got back from Iraq, my unit went to Washington state.

0:16:03 And so I was given the choice of like, hey, do you want to stay here in Fort Polk, Louisiana, which is like up in the backwoods in between Lake Charles and Shreveport.

0:16:12 If anybody knows that right by the Texas border. And they kind of gave me the choice and they said, like, well, if you're not re-enlisting, we're not going to bother relocating you across the country for a year.

0:16:24 You know, why would you just stay here and play oppositional forces? So there's a thing called the Joint Readiness Training Center, JRTC and Fort Polk, where most units that are going to be deployed overseas, especially to the Middle East, they have a, usually like two weeks to a month long stint there

0:16:40 where they're trained. So I got to grow like whatever beard I could at the time and where we call them the man dresses, but the traditional guard.

0:16:51 Yeah, like the traditional guard, guard and the headdress, and basically where like laser tag gear and I played laser tag training people that were getting ready to deploy themselves and I got to do some training on it kind of you know I do a little bit of Arabic I don't remember.

0:17:09 I didn't realize you guys did that so you actually had like live dummies out there I mean you guys are kind of dressed up and character so you guys could do some drills and stuff that's good.

0:17:19 Yeah and so it was me and me and another like about like 15 20 soldiers played oppositional forces for the next year.

0:17:26 So you'd be like living in the woods, basically like camping. And then the units would be crazy. Yeah, we had like six different towns that they would go into and they'd have to try and help us run like run elections and things like that, which was basically all the stuff that I was doing in Iraq.

0:17:41 A lot of like almost more military police work than artillery work, a lot of like guard duty. Yeah, undercover, not just in the trenches.

0:17:48 Yeah, Yeah, a lot of. Yeah, Yeah, a Really interesting, man. And so how, um, what about your transition back into getting back into the workforce?

0:17:55 What was that like? Yeah, I, so I got out, I'm going to condense this part of the story because it doesn't, this is the reason why most people for probably the next decade of my life didn't know, even know us in the military.

0:18:08 So when I got out, I'm, I mean, I enlisted because I wanted college money, right? I'm one of six kids.

0:18:13 My parents start paying for school for me, like, everything's on me. So one of the big reasons I enlisted was so I could just you know, let's get college paid for it Like that was my feeling is like I can give up two, three years of my life to go serve my country But now I get college paid for this is

0:18:27 awesome So I got out um, I was dating a girl uh from Buffalo actually she was going to Kinesha's and um She wanted to move to Atlanta and I was like, yeah, let's do this There's no point in me to go back to Buffalo from Louisiana So I the dad got out.

0:18:42 I just drove to Atlanta and uh her and I got a place and I went and started working at Dixporting Goods again because there's a brand new location.

0:18:48 I was like, I've already got a good record here. And I figured with my Army College money, and I also, because I scored so high in the ASVAB, I got the Army College Fund, which is additional to the MGIB, the Montgomery GI Bill.

0:19:04 So I was like, all right, I'm going to have like a lot of money for college. I could live off this.

0:19:08 I don't really need to work, but that could be like some supplemental income. And so I start going into kind of saw state, which is just outside of Lancet.

0:19:17 It's a really nice D1 school. I was like, let's go get that college experience. And the way it worked was they would send me a check and then I have to pay for school.

0:19:26 It's a little different now. Now they pay the school directly. But I get the first check and it's about half of what I expected.

0:19:34 And so I was pretty mad about it. So I I was calling up the V.A. What was your explanation on it?

0:19:43 Well, so I talked to veterans affairs and be like, hey, this is wrong. I got GI Bill's 28,000. I got Army College Fund on top of that for another 40,000.

0:19:51 That's 70,000 worked out over 36 weeks. I should be getting, or 36 months. I should be getting like two grand a month at least here.

0:20:00 And then I get my first check and it's like 900 bucks. And I was like, what is going on here?

0:20:04 And I'll never forget the sweet Southern ladies voice, but she goes, you know, you're not the first soldier I've told us to.

0:20:09 You won't be the last, but you're deceived by your military contract. That 40,000 is actually a total combination of the two and I was like, no, bullshit.

0:20:18 Like, I signed one page for the GI bill. I signed another page for Army College Fund. Those are 100% two different things.

0:20:24 I ended up taking like long, long story short, five years of me calling congressmen, getting interviewed by USA Today, causing out generals, causing out colonels, like, I was not happy about the situation.

0:20:37 I had to leave that school, I had to work full time, it just started taking night classes because that's all I could pay for.

0:20:42 I didn't want to sit here and go and take out a bunch of college loans and I'm taking me about eight years to finally finish school, taking night classes and working full time.

0:20:51 Eventually one day I finally get a letter because basically what it was was the Department to defense was saying we don't have the money for this.

0:21:01 And then variance affairs is so that you have to go to the variance affairs. They have to allocate that money in your contract.

0:21:07 You have to get your contract corrected. So I go to the variance affairs and they say, well, we can't correct it because it doesn't fall into these guidelines.

0:21:16 So then I found somebody that did get there's corrected for the exact same situation. And they said, oh, no, well, we don't do it like that anymore.

0:21:22 You got to go talk to DFS. It's like I'm just going to send out. For every time you made a turn, there's another excuse.

0:21:28 But that's just crazy that someone who serves a country goes through what you went through can get easily jerked around like that.

0:21:37 I mean, obviously that doesn't make you feel good and it doesn't make anybody listening to this feel good about it.

0:21:42 But did they eventually square you up? Yeah, no phone call, no anything. I just get a letter one day saying, we've re-evaluated people in your situation.

0:21:50 Well, what's really messed up about it is I get a letter one day saying, we've re-evaluated your situation. and you have to submit all of this paperwork all over again.

0:21:58 So basically, I had to take like five years of stuff, submit all of this. Here's the messed up part. This impacted every army contract from 1993 to 2007.

0:22:14 And all of the contracts, if you got Army College Fund, and GI Bill, all those people were screwed. It impacted over 100,000.

0:22:22 I was like 103,000 people or something like that. After jumping through all the hoops and having to do all of the things, 700 of us got paid the total amount at the end of the day.

0:22:33 Do you think that they favored people like yourself who was beating a big drum? Probably. I mean, I got USA Today to interview me.

0:22:43 So all that, yeah, all of that probably did end up paying off like literally paying off. It was a battle, it was a long time.

0:22:51 But so anyway, that's one of the reasons why I like I never felt good about my service You know, I also, I mean, I sure I don't agree with the Iraq war now like looking back and retrospect, but But it is what it is, but now I do start leaning into the military side a little bit more mostly because of

0:23:07 the military veteran entrepreneur community And I am really proud to be associated with a lot of those people because you do learn a lot of things in the service like you know discipline, hard work, integrity, loyalty, selfless service, you know, these are all incredibly important things.

0:23:24 And in my industry, because digital marketing is really no barrier, you know, any guy could come off the street.

0:23:31 I'm a digital marketer. I figured out, you know, I have a degree in digital marketing and organization, or a degree in marketing and organizational management.

0:23:37 So when I started this company, I was just really blown away between those two other companies that you mentioned in the intro, you know, Inc.

0:23:44 500 fastest-growing company and Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company. Both of them, the retention in this industry is just horrible. This Inc.

0:23:54 500 fastest-growing company, they were called Main Street Hub, they got bought by GoDaddy eventually. But average retention there was like seven months.

0:24:02 That's not a long time to have a marketing company. I worked at a company. I'm not going to name them, but I last the 30 days there.

0:24:12 In the 30 days, I was there. I saw a dozen people probably start and leave. And then the only people that were there for like a long period of time, everybody was extremely miserable.

0:24:23 So very strange, yeah, similar experience. Yeah. And I mean, even the next company I went to, they were more websites in SEO, where the first one was more social media reputation management and like mobile websites.

0:24:36 So I got this like, nice big picture of all these different aspects of digital. But even their retention was less than a year, I was like, why can't people like keep their clients like what what what is what is the missing Yeah, what is the missing secret sauce here?

0:24:52 So eventually when I came out here to California because my wife got her dream job out here and Actually, I guess I should reel this back a little bit because I worked for D***** morning goes for a long time.

0:25:03 I became a golf pro for a few years, greatest job ever. I just couldn't make any money doing it. So I was given lots of lessons as a running tournament for people when you're saying golf pro.

0:25:13 You mean that you were playing and you were actually in tournaments? I was a member of the PGM, which is the professional golf management program, the PGA management program.

0:25:22 So I went and I took the PGA player ability tests and I got a qualifying score so I was allowed into the program and then you have a incredible.

0:25:30 Yeah. I wish I got to play more golf. I love it. but one of my long-term dream goals here is to jump on the senior tour when I turn 50.

0:25:40 I don't think I can get out there and play with guys right now, but maybe when I'm 50 and then some of these older guys just like that mindset though, there's another opportunity and then down the road and you can keep practicing for that in your free time and it's something you're passionate about.

0:25:54 There's absolutely nothing wrong with it being a senior tour or whatever. You could still do what you love. It doesn't matter how old you are or what you know What part of your journey or end like you could still figure out how you can have fun doing something you love I absolutely love that part of 

0:26:09 your story. I just want to say real quick What I'd like to do and then we have limited time together today We're gonna take a two-minute time out real quick give some love to our sponsors And when we come back with you We're gonna talk a little bit more about business.

0:26:23 We'll learn a little bit about digital marketing some tips from you And we'll even do a little lightning round to keep things flying.

0:26:29 So we'll be right back two quick minutes to give some love to our sponsors and then we'll come back with Paul.

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0:28:40 Alright, we're back in action with Paul Mackiewicz. you guys can connect with them on social media and his website is clickable in the show notes, making it super easy to connect.

0:28:49 So we're gonna do a little digital marketing 101 here. I teased it a little bit before the break. So it's 2022 as we record this, right?

0:28:57 So you gave us your story kind of leading up until getting back into the workforce, doing a little PGA action and having this vision to get out on the golf course.

0:29:07 But you're also someone who started a great company And a lot of people respect what you're doing. I know I do.

0:29:13 And one thing I love about you, Paul, is you've connected it all together, like the relationship building, the disciplines you've learned in the military, the things you've learned in business, the things you've learned in sales, working at Dix, and working with the number of digital marketing clients

0:29:27 to kind of put it into this huge ball, and molded it into this business that you've created, and I love it.

0:29:34 So what I'd love to hear from you and learn is, What are the five must-haves for every business right now regarding digital marketing?

0:29:42 I love that. Put me on the spot. All right. So, if I were to say the most important of all of them, obviously, they need a website, but here's the more important part of the website because I work with mostly law firms and medical professionals and most of the medical professionals are in like the naturopathic

0:30:02 side. So some chiropractors or osteopathic doctors. I don't work with traditional medicine for a few reasons, but we could get that later.

0:30:11 But with law firms in medical so many of the websites are very, I mean, to be blunt, boring. There's zero emotional connection that people are forming when they're landing on them.

0:30:25 And so I go into digital marketing very different. If you take a company like say like Scorpion or Find Law, they want to take a law firm and put them into their box, right?

0:30:36 Like, this is the no for basically like that. We're doing it because we have to do it. It's kind of yeah, they're checking a box Where where it's a website.

0:30:44 Here's a website. It's done and it's very minimalistically Functional and and you know the website is it's literally like the only place on the entire internet you control fully Right, like that's the only thing you control every bit of that message And so with it, I really dig into the conversation.

0:31:02 This is my favorite part of what I do. It's strategizing and sitting down and being like, what are your value propositions?

0:31:07 Like, oh, I do free consultations. I'm like, great, so does every other lawyer. Like, what's special about you? And I constantly dig and dig and dig and I finally get them to talk about, you know, they have a very diverse staff and he did that on purpose because he always wanted to have no matter who

0:31:20 you were when you came in the office, feel like you had someone you could relate to. I've had some that really talk about how they want to positively impact their community and they're giving back to their community, whether it be like after school programs or charities or donations, things like that

0:31:34 . I have some that, you know, you can always look to like, say, big cases they've done, but like why those big cases, one of my favorite clients is a civil rights attorney up in Detroit.

0:31:44 He does a lot of employment law and he just has so many amazing stories of taking people that were like wrongfully terminated, you know, for racial or sexual discrimination and getting these people compensation for this.

0:31:56 I mean, it's just some amazing story there. Yeah, and if you went to his website, you'd be like, oh, what does this guy do?

0:32:04 Like, I'm like, let's tell the story. Let's do this. Like, let's build an emotional connection with somebody. So anyway, that's what your website is truly, therefore, is for you to be open and honest and genuine and authentic with any person that's finding you online and building that emotional connection

0:32:21 , because the bounce rate on most websites is over 50%, which means most people are only on a website for less than a minute.

0:32:28 So in that minute, you haven't displayed your value and given them a reason to like you and think that you potentially could be a trustworthy option to solve whatever problem they're going through because for an attorney or a doctor, I mean, they're not in a good spot in their life, right?

0:32:44 Like they have a legal situation. Anybody who's been through legal situation knows, it's some scary shit, right? That's not like a good time of your life.

0:32:52 Same with the medical. You know, you're not feeling well. You need to find solutions. And so, you know, really understanding that and helping law firms and doctors figure this out because in the, you know, eight years of school they go to, they have one business class.

0:33:08 They literally take one business class. They don't even take a marketing class. So understanding who they are and how to convey that value is really, some that a lot of them are missing.

0:33:18 And there's not many marketing companies out there that want to take them and kind of like ease them through that process of discovering that about themselves.

0:33:26 And then having the ability to actually display that online in a way that's going to generate leads in business and things like that.

0:33:32 And so is it that you were working with this particular lawyer or a particular lawyer and then you kind of caught wind of like, man, look at these competitors.

0:33:42 Like everybody really needs their help. And that's why you focus on that industry because it really needed help. You know what?

0:33:49 I think I've always been pretty empathetic in especially in my sales side. Like it coming up with with Main Street Hub, you know, it was it was cold calling.

0:34:00 You know, I was dialing a phone 150 times a day to start. And I really wasn't making that many sales because I was following a script and being like, do you know regurgitating these lines that are supposed to walk them down this journey?

0:34:12 me. And then one day I was like, you know what, if I just have a conversation with them, like a genuine conversation and just get these people to open up and, you know, one, they're going to like me more because they're not going to care about what I know until they know I care, right?

0:34:26 And I do genuinely care about small businesses and it's become a, you know, one of the focal points of my life here is like helping small businesses.

0:34:34 I hate corporations. I hate, I mean, if I could not use Amazon, I would like, I just need You know, it's I believe much more in the local community and how you can impact that so in in working with the those other digital marketing companies Like the phone calls people would be having like their average

0:34:52 call length would be like two minutes or a minute and a half right like Just smiling and dialing mine would always be like 13 minutes 20 minutes like I'm having these like conversations with people and and helping them like think about their business in ways that they'd never done before, right?

0:35:09 Like what makes you special? You know, why, if I'm looking at you versus your competitor, why should I choose you?

0:35:14 You know, why did you start your business? That's one of my favorite questions I asked then. And you wouldn't believe how many people I'm like, you know, nobody's actually ever asked me that.

0:35:21 And I was like, how am I gonna make you look great online? Unless I like to know your purpose, you know, the story behind you.

0:35:29 So I think that's really where our company kind of separates It's ourselves from, you know, fine loss, scorpion, justia, like in the legal realm, like patient popped, there's similar competitors in the medical realm, you know, with a lot of those, it's, you get what they give you, right?

0:35:46 And I try to be, you know, you get all of me, right? You get me and my team, actually caring and, Yeah, this was Sarmony Knife that you come along with.

0:35:56 Yeah, but I think I've always just kind of been that way. I think I've always been a little bit more empathetic and loving to hear people's stories, and then now having the technical skills to actually build a gorgeous website, and take those little nuggets that somebody says, this attorney Drake Log

0:36:13 Group up here in California, he, I remember him very vividly with one day, I was like, what do you want people to feel when they hear your name, when they see your site, when they find you on social media?

0:36:25 What's the root emotion you want them to feel? And he's like, you know what? People are going through a legal situation.

0:36:30 it's dark days. I imagine them having clouds over them and then the clouds are kind of breaking. The sunlight's coming in, like, help is coming.

0:36:39 Better days are on the way. And so if you go to his website, you'll see it's him smiling, great suit.

0:36:45 He's a good-looking guy, and it's Los Angeles in the background, and the clouds are dissipating. The sun's just creeping up with some palm trees.

0:36:54 Like, it's immediately, it's meant to convey that emotion, like, Yeah, yeah, and that just comes from conversations like and most other law firms, you know, you get to the home page and it's like arms folded Like underfoot and this guy was like no, like I want people to feel like I'm a good guy like 

0:37:11 I'm here to help right like that. That's end of the day so Rewind those and get it back to your original question top five things number one a good website that actually Genuinely conveys The emotional connection that you want to build with people and reasons that they should like you Number two, I would

0:37:28 say is Google Business Listing. It's where about 80% of people find a business is through Google Maps, Voice Search. The information that's on your Google Business Listing does impact where you show up on the maps.

0:37:40 So it does impact map SEO. There's so many features in there that people just don't utilize, like product and service cards, which is amazing.

0:37:49 It's still at edge of good info in, good info out. Like if you don't have that info so that Google can grab to better position you when people are looking for you, you're just not helping yourself.

0:38:01 Yeah. And if you think about how people make buying decisions now, I mean, we are very distracted society. You know, we're making decisions very quickly.

0:38:09 If I get to, you know, I'm looking at a map and I see four and a half star, three and a half star, boom, three and a half stars gone, right?

0:38:15 So like, and then if I'm looking at like, say four and a half star, four point two and I click it and I look through some reviews and I see, oh, this guy here is actually answering his reviews.

0:38:23 Like, look, why she cares. He doesn't just care in person, he cares online. So we answer all the reviews for our clients and always just make sure that they look like they're on top of their stuff.

0:38:32 Even if you type, see you get like a rideshare accident. Like maybe you type like personal injury attorney or you type car accident attorney or something like that.

0:38:43 But for like to just talk about Drake again, cause he's an easy one to point to, he does a lot of uber and lift accidents.

0:38:51 So when you get to his Google business listing, it says like services. You click on it. There's these beautiful product cards with this logo and it's kind of cool grayscale images and it says ride share accidents.

0:39:01 You click on it, you know, it's got a little little description of it, you know, learn more. It takes you right to the ride share accents page on this website with the form and the one button calling and conversion and all that.

0:39:10 But, you know, he gets so many leads just right through his Google business listing just because it looks fantastic. The images that are on there, we even have some testimonial videos.

0:39:18 You can put on there, but the amount of people that just ignore that listing or like here's our hours of operation.

0:39:23 Here's our phone number done. And it's just a massive, massive, missed opportunity. So that's, that's what I'd say is number two.

0:39:31 So website, Google My Business definitely. Google My Business to the top. Yeah. I would say number three is, well, we'll do it this way first.

0:39:39 First, I'm going to say your business listings because that is, you got to think of it in steps, right? One, you got to be findable.

0:39:48 People have to be aware you exist. And that's why you need a website like these listings, this Google business listing being the most important of the listings, but then there are also hundreds of other listings out there.

0:39:59 All of those are potential connections with people or at least links back to your website. So Google sees more authority in your site.

0:40:07 You could rank higher because of that more citations. But also, you just never know where someone's gonna find you. Right?

0:40:13 There's things out there like alignable, which is a new one, next door is a new one. Like you gotta be on all these different platforms because you just never know where somebody's potentially going to find you.

0:40:23 And if you're not there, then you're not even in the conversation for them to consider you. So I would say that's probably the third most important is just listings in general.

0:40:32 And for that, you can use things like like Yaks sign up. We have our own proprietary technology that we use for it.

0:40:38 That gets you on like 200 different business listings. So as long as you have like a there's tools in place.

0:40:45 So you don't have to go to all these sites and do it all manual. It's similar to like launching a podcast and having an RSS feed and it kicks it out to the right places Yeah, it's yeah, it's exact same thing.

0:40:54 Oh, I guess what do we got four? Number four here. I'd say is To kind of stay in that listing side is your review sites, but most importantly, Yelp There's also industry specific ones like attorneys have AVO and have Justia Medical as Z******** and Raid MD and things like that.

0:41:16 So So one, we're very impacted by star ratings. So get one or two good reviews on there, on each one, answer them, display that customer service online.

0:41:27 The reason I say review sites, but most importantly, Yelp is because Yelp is actually the main data source for all Apple products currently, until Apple releases their own review management system, which has apparently been in the work for seven years now.

0:41:41 Yeah, that's interesting. So that's good to be there for that kind of that connection. Yeah. And with the increase in voice search, that continues to grow exponentially year after year.

0:41:51 Anybody can just do a little test themselves right now and just grab Siri and say, hey, Siri, find me a attorney in the area, find me a restaurant in the area, find me whatever you want.

0:42:00 And you'll notice right underneath that listing says like 35 reviews on Yelp, you know, this on Yelp. The images that are in there are the images that you've put on Yelp, hours of operation, all that data is coming from that.

0:42:10 So Apple is connected to Yelp, right? So you want to make sure that you are, you know, if your, if your Yelpa is not looking great, right, pictures, listings, listed correctly, everything's accurate, then potentially when someone picks up their phone and says, Hey Siri, take me to the nearest Italian

0:42:27 restaurant. If your Yelpa is obviously not updated, then that's right now where Apple's pulling a majority of its information, correct?

0:42:35 Yes, yeah, they pull it from a few sources. TripAdvisor is also another one that they pull big from, but But if you're a professional service, you know, anything from doctors, attorneys to plumbers, you know, HVAC, all of that stuff, all of that data is coming from Yelp.

0:42:52 So you got to be sure, one, you got all the information filled out, you got a few good reviews on there, you got that nice big red five stars, you know, Yelp does a good job of differentiating the four stars, three stars and five stars.

0:43:04 So make sure you look good over there. Again, It's free. Yelp is gonna pass you like crazy to advertise with them once you claim it But I mean if you don't claim it, that's literally just floating out there, right?

0:43:15 And then what I would put as five Still important, but we're seeing a significant decrease in the importance of it In the industries I work with is actually social media Yeah, it's still very important right like People search on there for business.

0:43:32 I knew I knew you're gonna say that too social media But yeah, kind of interesting. So why do you feel that it's decreasing?

0:43:39 Mostly because the algorithm changes have really reduced, I think they've done a huge disservice for small businesses in general. Before, you know, and any business owner that's been on Facebook for 10 years, you know, can tell you this.

0:43:54 I used to post and, you know, I'd get tons of likes and people would be engaging with them and things like that.

0:43:57 And now I post and I look at the views And it's like I've got 2,000 followers and my views is 17 people saw it, right?

0:44:05 It's because they do these engagement scores. They screw the algorithms. It's so I talk about social media much more often as social proof Because if somebody if somebody is looking Social proof, it's really two things right.

0:44:17 It's one Social proof is part of the SEO algorithm for Google So if Google sees you have a Facebook page attached to your website and there's a lot of activity on it.

0:44:26 You actually can and increasing rankings from it, it's not a big one, but it is one of the factors in the algorithm.

0:44:33 Another big part of it though is if I'm looking at two or three different law firm's doctors, whatever, restaurants, and I see a link to their social media on their website or I'm comparing them on social media.

0:44:47 And I see one that shows me something I can relate to and I see another one that hasn't posted in six months.

0:44:53 Cool, like that's just one of those additional little pushes it's going to allow me to really narrow down my choices.

0:45:00 We call it the zero-moment of truth, which is the zero-moment of truth, Z-Mot, is something Google came out with about 10 years ago.

0:45:07 So it's not like a new concept, but that's how I always take a social media because before it was always, you know, awareness, make a buying decision, and then decide this was awesome or it sucked.

0:45:18 It's always like, first moments, you know, awareness, the first moment, the second moment. So like, the zero moment of truth is actually this comparison step because we all have these computers in our pockets.

0:45:28 So now we've become aware of our business, we compare two or three of them, we read some reviews, we look at their social media, we were impacted by the visuals that we're seeing, then we make a decision, then we decide it was awesome or a sucked.

0:45:40 So there's a first time I made this thought, Paul, and I just want to share it is, I have a media marketing background as well that goes back a couple years and so I always remember hearing about like the importance of a website, it's basically your digital storefront, right?

0:45:57 I heard that over and over, digital storefront, right? Like so, what would your store look like? Doesn't have busted windows, how are the bricks falling down?

0:46:04 You know, as a sign lit up, is the S in your name on the sign blinking or is it not even lit?

0:46:10 Like, what do you look like when someone's coming up on that street, like your curb appeal, and they look up at your sign and see what you look like?

0:46:16 So that's kind of essentially that first look of your website. But I feel like social media is similar, but the way that it's different, it's almost like, so if your website is kind of your digital storefront, I feel like social media is kind of like your more intimate hangouts, like the Christmas party

0:46:34 you're at, the company party you're at, hanging out at the gym. People are getting to see what you're like in those other environments, not just your digital storefront.

0:46:42 So that's not telling the whole story anymore. People want that little bit more intimate. Who's this, what's Paul all about?

0:46:48 What's his company about what kind of things are they doing in the community and social media, even if it's a highlight reel and it's not 100% accurate, it gives you a little bit more layers behind it.

0:46:58 I never thought of it that way, but that certainly makes sense. Yeah, I think that you should put that very well.

0:47:04 Like a website's not, you can only make it so personal, right? You're not updating your website every day with a new video or a new image or anything like that.

0:47:11 But on social media, you certainly can. So I have this doctor and it was a pain to really get him to talk about who he was, like what differentiated him, what were these value propositions, similar to what I run into with a lot of businesses.

0:47:24 But after, you know, we built him this beautiful website that's very professionally, likes the professional website with lots of good testimonial videos and then we're on his social.

0:47:32 And he can only post like, I'm a naturopathic doctor. I do, you know, acupuncture, I do this. Like you can only post that so many times, right?

0:47:41 You gotta find some things that are fresh. And so I always talk to him about, I'm like, what's your favorite TV show?

0:47:46 You know, and I get them kind of going on that. I'm like, what's something about you? People wouldn't know what your favorite sports team.

0:47:51 Because you want to find these things that you can use to relate. But you're not going to plaster that on the website, right?

0:47:56 So the social media is the perfect place for it. This guy finally, he finally opened up to me one day and they talked about how much him and his kids love Harry Potter and they put on the robes and they go to Hogwarts and they got the wands and they do all that stuff.

0:48:08 So I was like, you got to save me some pictures, right? And so now his social media, Yeah, you know, we do the Harry Potter stuff all the time.

0:48:15 Yeah, he's a naturopathic actor and, you know, that's what he does, but now he's also got this other thing that people can relate to him on.

0:48:21 It's called a pulse. It's called being human. I mean, the guy has a life, right? And so you get to understand that he's not just a stiff in an office all day long.

0:48:30 The key actually has a family he cares about and it's super cool. I'm glad that you're pulling that out. Sometimes a lot of the people we're working with and you're working with are uncomfortable because they're not used to doing that.

0:48:43 So we got to get them out of their comfort zone. Yeah, a lot of people, they think the internet is like permanent and they think that like, I mean, if we put up a post, my team, some clients, most of my clients, I would say 99% of my clients absolutely love this, but you also get people that are like

0:49:00 , oh my gosh, don't put it on the internet, right? Don't put it on the internet. Like, if you don't like a post, we'll just take it down.

0:49:05 Like, who cares, right? Like it doesn't, it's not, it's not this purpose. Usually the one that someone thinks is most embarrassing is the one that might be a little bit more vulnerable and actually go viral because it shows transparency Right, yeah, and and really stretch that forum too, and The the 

0:49:22 last thing that I just want to just want to point out about this is you know, I That's people buy from people they like like there's a reason I have an army flag behind me There's a reason you know, I drink out of a Buffalo Bill's mug All the time when I'm not called sure so that man.

0:49:35 I don't have one in front of me It's being cleaned. Yeah, I mean, I post me meditating with my baby rolling around.

0:49:44 I had my first kid in January. So my kids rolling around the ground but us doing some meditating out in the park with them.

0:49:49 Like, I want people to know the things that I enjoy that I'm passionate about. There's even a video on there of me.

0:49:55 I got my kid at the driving range and I'm hitting a bucket of balls and he's sitting your plane in the grass right behind me.

0:50:01 So I was like, that's perfect. Opportunity to show people like the real side of me too, you know? like I'm not I don't just talk about golf.

0:50:08 Here's me at the range hitting balls and here's my adorable kid because everybody on Instagram loves babies, right? And I got this cute little girl baby.

0:50:16 So why not why not show off the things I'm passionate about my life, my kid and some golf? It shows that you're real man.

0:50:22 And so that transitions us right to the end of the episode here. I'm doing something new. I've only done this once or twice in most of the episodes that I've recorded that have this added to it.

0:50:33 I haven't even lied yet, as I say this. So as we've recorded this, so I wanted to kind of like bring a little bit more lightheartedness and a little bit more in depth into the guest, but not just, you know, like premeditated questions.

0:50:45 So we're gonna do a little rapid fire. You ready to rock and roll? Let's do it. We're gonna try to keep these answers short and concise.

0:50:53 A lot of times rapid fire ends up going into another story. So let's try to keep it as rapid as possible.

0:50:59 favorite book, oh, I have so many. I'll sell outside the book that I'm really into right now which is Cell Light Crazy by Sobresooby.

0:51:12 Awesome. Would you rather be skiing or snorkeling? Snorkeling. Something unique about you could be anything. Talent, trait. I absolutely love Marvel movies.

0:51:26 So, favorite location you've ever visited, Costa Rica. Cool. We'll talk about that later. Greatest fear. Not being able to build the life for my family that I think that they deserve.

0:51:45 Yeah, I love that, man. So, you mentioned Marvel, so maybe pick something different. Other than Marvel, what's a favorite movie that you love to go back to?

0:51:53 Oh, um, everything everywhere all at once. That's top three movies I've ever seen it. I've never even heard of it.

0:52:04 I live in under a rock. It came out maybe a year ago. I think it might be an HBO Max or something right now.

0:52:10 But everything everywhere, everywhere all at once. I believe is the name of it. All at once. Who's in it? Yes, everything everywhere all at once.

0:52:21 Michelle, yo, isn't it? She, James Lee Curtis isn't it? I'm gonna check it out. I'm looking for a good, you know, I like to, like, one night a week I'll watch a movie and it doesn't really happen all that often anymore.

0:52:32 But I try to have, like, one hour or two hours of, like, personal time. It will blow your mind. It's true, like, top three movies that I've ever seen.

0:52:40 That's awesome, brother. I'm looking forward to it. What's the best compliment that you can personally receive? Um, um, that I'm honorable, honorable.

0:52:52 Yeah. If you could be any animal, who would it be? Oh, man. I think I'd say a monkey, but sloth is close.

0:53:04 Yeah, sloths look like they live a pretty tough life. They're just hanging out. They're spending all that time with their family.

0:53:12 They got a little lash on to them. I chilled myself. No care in the world, man, I can't get there when I get there.

0:53:17 Yeah, just hanging out eating. They're usually eating all day long. Yeah, but also monkeys because they still got the agility.

0:53:25 They could they could do some, but they still. They could hang around the chill, but they yeah, but they can get out of there in a second if they wanted to, right?

0:53:31 What's your greatest natural skill would you say? Making connections, not necessarily with people, but like with concepts that generally people don't see the connections between them.

0:53:44 Light bulbs are popping. Yeah. Almost figuring it out behind the scenes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. The last one for you, if you could travel, if you can time travel to any place, any time, where would you go?

0:53:58 Oh my gosh, so many places. I think I'd like to go back to creation. Wow, dude, that's awesome, man. Are you a believer?

0:54:08 Yes, certainly. Yeah, that's awesome, man. Me too, me too. And yeah, I'd have to agree that That's got to be on the top of the list to see the magic, right?

0:54:18 That's, I gotta tell you, we might have to handle this offline in our project, but I've been mulling this idea around lately so much of, because I do love some VR.

0:54:27 Everyone's so on. I'm actually pretty pumped for the new Oculus to come out. But I would love to see a VR Christian program where you could actually be in the experiences of the Bible.

0:54:41 I think that that would really awaken a lot of believers out there or really you know shake some people to I agree I mean, there's so many different things that are still has are definitely historically documented that you could It's not arguable.

0:54:57 Well, it's very very interesting. Did you see the new series sounds like your movie guy and enjoy Great content. Have you seen a new show the chosen?

0:55:07 I haven't it's it's so I just learned about it like maybe two weeks. It's fantastic. Yeah. Look, I said, I don't watch enough, you know, I'm like the opposite of the most Americans.

0:55:19 I really don't watch TV anymore. Other than I put sports on in the background of mute when I'm working and I watch Aaron Judge try to get to 61, 62 home runs as I'm working.

0:55:28 But I've watched a few episodes of this now, because a bunch of friends at my church have recommended it in our small group too.

0:55:35 It's really well done. Like it's as good as like any production and it's really, really awesome to see it. The guy who plays Jesus obviously looks like him but he just has, he kind of really, he's like so locked into that character.

0:55:48 It's really, really good. Check it out. I certainly will. How do you watch it, is it? So I don't know if this is a change but there are, I don't know if you can do it on YouTube but there is an app and it's free.

0:56:01 It's a crowd-funded platform. And when you get the app, you can watch it and then you can donate if you want to at the time.

0:56:09 I watched it, it was optional, probably still is. So did you find it? Yes, it's actually it's on peacock, which we have a peacock.

0:56:18 Now they have it on peacock too. So yeah, there you go, brother. Boom. That's gonna be it. My wife and I, we need a new show.

0:56:26 Our favorite shows are all like the, we love Survivor, we love the amazing race. So probably like two of my favorite shows right there.

0:56:34 Watch some of the behind the scenes the director and he talks about the location and how they did it a little bit behind the scenes and the guy just is like the the mix of passion talent and purpose is just like it's a perfect blend with him.

0:56:50 So I definitely want to give him love. All right, we're gonna wrap up here. It's such a fun interview. I'm glad that we got to get a little bit outside the box today with your story up front and some of the rapid fire questions here.

0:57:01 I'd like you to deliver a nice message here for anyone who's still with us and we appreciate you being with us again on YouTube or any of the audio platforms as well.

0:57:10 You're tuning in, listening to Paul, you heard a story, he's a successful entrepreneur. Paul, give us kind of a treasure at the end of this conversation here that the people who stuck with you can come and get.

0:57:24 Say they're starting out, they're contemplating entrepreneurship, they're a little scared, their families kind of talking about it, their friends are talking about it, and they are on the fence and they're not sure if they should get started.

0:57:34 What would you tell them? There's nothing more rewarding than being a creator. I think that that is the biggest difference between successful people and people that are living a life of wanting more is the people that are stuck in consumption mode versus creation mode.

0:57:53 And so I'd say that but entrepreneurship is being the ultimate creator. You're building a business, you're building content, you're building relationships, you're building, building, building.

0:58:02 And it's the most rewarding thing that you could possibly do. It's great all day. Mike, drop moment right there, Paul.

0:58:09 You left the treasure there and you delivered, man. This is a lot of fun. I know we've talked a few times.

0:58:15 You're someone who I now consider a friend. We got the Buffalo connection. Where are you currently living? Are you moving back to South Carolina?

0:58:21 Is that right? Yeah, we're currently in Los Angeles, but we will be, by the time the show comes out, we'll be in South Carolina.

0:58:28 One thing I love about Paul, guys, is you're not afraid to move. You're not afraid to try something different. I mean, you literally joined the military, just like, oh yeah, let's do that.

0:58:38 You're someone who is willing to go and kind of play in the sandbox. And when a girlfriend says, let's move to Atlanta, that sounds fun.

0:58:46 You're like, okay, cool, let's try it. So you're not someone who's afraid of giving something a shot. And I think the fact that you've taken so many shots in your life similar to Michael Jordan shooting at the hoop And you've mentioned you like to play basketball.

0:58:58 So you got admiration for someone great like that He a quote I've shared a few times on the show is He claims that his success is not because he just hits those game winning shots It's the 9000 shots that he's he's shot and missed but he was does 9000 and one Yeah, 9000 and two and he just keeps trying

0:59:17 and figuring it out and getting better and that's that's what you've been doing man You've been rekind of shapeshifting yourself a little bit in different stages of your life and before you know it, you'll be on the PGA senior golf tour holding up a cup and it'll be on whatever social media channels 

0:59:33 out in that year. Well, I really appreciate you saying that. I'm super grateful for you and give me this platform's ability to come out here and tell my story because stories are what allows people to be relatable.

0:59:48 And I do one of my biggest issues that I have is I don't give myself credit very often So hearing you say that it is very nice and truly greatly appreciate it.

0:59:59 Thank you Yeah, yeah, you definitely deserved it. You earned it and I appreciate you Being real about it and sharing the fact that sometimes it's hard like we humble ourselves in the reality of life And we go go go go go and we don't always stop to feel that But take that breath of fresh air and say,

1:00:18 man, I'm worthy. Wearing this is something that a lot of people struggle with, and so maybe take an extra moment today to reflect.

1:00:26 Paul McElwitz delivered today, my man, and I really appreciate you, brother, and I just want to remind everyone that's tuning in here again, go to hashtag, or, excuse me, hashtag dashsmart.com, it's clickable in the show notes, check out the website, there's a lot of great content there, and social media

1:00:43 as well. Paul, thank you for being with us today, brother. Two last things I tell everybody is to remember to be great and be grateful and you do both of those extremely well.

1:00:53 Thank you so much for your time. Thanks, bro. Appreciate you. I'd like to give a huge shout out to everyone for tuning in, especially those who listen all the way to the end to hear this message.

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1:01:53 M-I-K-E-D-I-C-I-O-C-C-I-O Thank you so much for your continued support. You guys know what to do. Be great and be grateful

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