Find Your Purpose & GRIT IT DONE Your Way to Business Success

Chris Kiefer (00:02.526)

Welcome back to, that's great timing. One second, put it on.

Reid Tileston (00:07.164)

Better you than me, I just turned my on airplane mode two seconds ago.

Chris Kiefer (00:11.39)

There you go. Do not disturb. All right. Welcome back to another episode of the Pursuit of Purpose. My name is Chris Kieffer and I am here today with Reed Tyleston, who is an entrepreneur, business owner, an adjunct professor, an investor, a board member, a successfully exited operator, researcher, and an author of a new book called Grit It Done. So Reed.

First of all, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to come on and share some wisdom with all the listeners.

Reid Tileston (00:44.956)

Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you so much for the invite. I am honored to be here. As we talked about, I know you're in Coeur d 'Alene. I love Idaho. I spent all my summers up there, so it's a great state. And it's never a bad time to talk about purpose. Like purpose is just such a critical part of maximizing existence. And I just love the title of your podcast, the people you bring on to just share inspirational, positive messages. There's a unique study I love to talk about done in 2017 that identifies two human states, right? One is a state of...

of assessment. One is the state of locomotion. And the study shows that people get more satisfaction when they're actually in a state of locomotion, working towards the ultimate goal that they have. But you know what impacts that state of locomotion? And I'll give you a hint. It's in the title of your podcast.

Chris Kiefer (01:31.742)

purpose.

Reid Tileston (01:32.541)

If you can combine locomotion, so taking steps towards an end goal that aligns to a high sense of self -assessed purpose, then you're in the driver's seat for a fulfilled life. So it's common wisdom, but it's always... It was just a study done in 2017 by some Mac...

Chris Kiefer (01:45.15)

What was that study that you said?

I know, but what was the, on which, what was the framework for the study or the purpose of the study?

Reid Tileston (01:54.908)

Oh, it was to understand if people feel more fulfillment in a state of assessment versus locomotion, right? So are you happier thinking about what you're going to do or actually taking steps towards doing it?

Chris Kiefer (01:58.975)

Ah, fulfillment. Got it.

Chris Kiefer (02:06.462)

Which, yeah, and clearly it would be taking steps, right?

Reid Tileston (02:09.82)

It's always nice when academic studies back up what we already know, you know, just by being human beings. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Kiefer (02:13.118)

Yeah, by a long shot. Um, so yeah, what I'm very interested in and one thing that caught my attention about, um, just you and the book is I am very pro entrepreneurship. My wife and I joke that our most common advice that we give people is to quit their job. It's like the number of times that you're talking to someone and you hear them, you know, complaining or talking about the frustrations. It's like, why don't you just get a different job, you know?

which maybe is a luxury, but I also think that at least what I'm intrigued to know from you is that there are some frameworks and some ways for more people to be successful entrepreneurs. So I don't know if that's to what extent, obviously that's in the subtitle of your book, but that's what I'm like. I have a passion around that and just like, yes, like you said, I love purpose and just like,

the mission and like, why are we here? What are we doing? But I love even more when other people are inspired to go do the thing, whatever that is in their life and actually move towards something that's meaningful instead of just taking what I would say is like the safe route or the safe option, which happens to be the job that they have in front of them. Who knows how they got there. Um, but I just feel like it's a much more exciting adventure to, you know, carve out your own path.

So, yeah, tell us, I mean, you can riff off what I just said or dive into an overview of this theme or idea of Grid It Done.

Reid Tileston (03:53.372)

So first and foremost, great piece of advice because again, talking about levels of happiness, if you just switch careers from being an employee to a business owner, you're gonna be happier. And also if you actually switch back from being a business owner to an employee, you're also gonna be happier. So change of careers actually independent of which route you go, which direction you go, drives happiness. So you're given a good piece of advice independent of which way you're going. What I would tell you though,

Chris Kiefer (04:20.478)

Interested, is that just another, that's another fact of just like when you change jobs, you're gonna be happier? For a while at least.

Reid Tileston (04:27.068)

Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, there, and there's not a lot of, uh, time to like say, Hey, 10 years down the road, was it a good choice or even one year or five, not the same one year, but even a couple of years, but in the short term, yes, the change drives happiness. What's more interesting though in these same, and I don't want to get too much of my academic hat on because I'm just a humble business owner at my core. But, um, what's interesting though is that the change from employment, right? So a job.

to self -employment, the level of happiness with that change is higher than it is when you change from being a business owner back to being an employee. So both directions drive your happier changing, but the happiness level is higher going from employee to owner, essentially. I think about it in the book as...

Chris Kiefer (05:12.414)

I feel like it's gotta be something to do with autonomy.

Reid Tileston (05:15.356)

Big time, big time, autonomy, freedom, control in the calendar, all that good stuff. And that's actually the exact underlying variable in this study that I'm referencing, the ability to feel like you are controlling your destiny, just to put it in simple terms. So I think about it with, you know, there's four personas, right? Which I certainly outline in the book. Persona one is you're an employee, and that's a backbone of, you know, Western, it's a backbone of the economy, right? Second persona,

persona is you're an equity employee. And we can think about that as being like a CEO, where you're able to do things that add equity value to the organization that you're a part of. Ultimately, you don't control your destiny though, right? You're at the peril of a board, a peril of a boss in some capacity. So you don't truly own all the upside of what you have, nor do you necessarily control your destiny. Third persona is a business owner. You own your upside.

I would say that you have autonomy, you have freedom, and you work for yourself. But oftentimes...

You work more for the business. The business owns you more than you own the business. And I love business owners. I've been one for a very long time. The better option is what I'll call entrepreneurial business ownership, which is where the business really works for you. You're able to work on the business as opposed to in the business. And that's where that true freedom, that's where the true autonomy, that's where the true owning your upside comes from. And that's the reason that I wrote a book, which is a nine step process for how to be an entrepreneurial business owner.

owner, which is a mix of frameworks along with my personal experience doing it over the last 16 years. So I agree with you that the better life is as a business owner and the best life is as an entrepreneurial business owner. But let's be crystal clear, it's not an easy life.

Reid Tileston (07:10.684)

It's a lot of work and it's certainly not for everybody. But I wrote a book, Grit It Done, you can get it at grititdone .com, 99 cents through the end of May. That is a great time efficient, low cost, takes you three hours to read, first step in people that are thinking about making that.

transition from being an employee to being a business owner. And what I outline is that to lower risk and still get the upside, good option is to buy an existing business or an existing concept versus starting one from scratch. Cause the same upside can be there with lower risk.

Chris Kiefer (07:46.11)

So you're saying that one of the best things to do is find a business to buy.

Reid Tileston (07:52.316)

Silver Tsunami is going on right now. You have a -

retiring baby boomers that are transferring. Some people might tell you 20 trillion, some might say 10, they're transferring trillions of dollars of wealth to younger generations. A good portion of that wealth is held up in small business. So there's a lot of opportunities to buy existing businesses going on right now. And there's a ton of demand for them as well, but there's also a lot of supply. So it's a very vibrant time to get involved in that. You know, prior to contrary to what we oftentimes hear, you know, the American dream is,

It is not dead, it is alive and well, and there's a good opportunity to live your own American dream by going out and acquiring one of these businesses, and it can lower the risk as opposed to starting one while still lobbying upside. So yeah, that's...

Chris Kiefer (08:40.318)

And you're, so this is interesting because this is what you, you were an adjunct professor. Um, it looks like in your, your bio here at case Western reserve, and it was, uh, teaching entrepreneurship through acquisition. And is that this I'm assuming right in line with what you're talking about, right?

Reid Tileston (08:58.428)

Yeah, well, I started, luckily I started teaching it after I'd already successfully done it. Who wants to learn from someone that's out of a textbook, right? Yes, kind of. I mean, not that that's a bad thing, but I like to combine the fact that I've done this like very successfully. Well, I shouldn't say very, very instant term. I've done this successfully.

Chris Kiefer (09:15.934)

What is very, yeah.

Reid Tileston (09:17.148)

Yeah, exactly. It's all, it's, it's, you know, assessment relative to what you want. Right. But I've done this over the course of 16 years with four different companies. And after my last exit, which was just a good one, it was, you know, 10 X plus, I decided then that I wanted to go into teaching, which goes into another key pillar point that I outline in the book. And that is the power of peer groups.

and the people that you surround yourself with. I was inspired to go and get involved in teaching because when I went to business school at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, right when they were launching their, you know, it's a good career track for MBAs to buy Main Street businesses, I was a teaching assistant for a first -time class that Booth was teaching on this subject. And that experience working with these two first -time adjuncts,

inspired me, it was transformational for me. These two individuals inspired me to want to go and I'd already done some successful stuff before that in the fitness space and franchising, but they inspired me to want to go out and buy a bigger business and then it really inspired me to want to come back and teach it. So it's key because I surrounded myself with people that I found empowering that were aligned to my goal of wanting to go out and be a, you know, a business, you know, to buy another business. And that relationship has just paid

so many dividends for me both then and in the years to come.

So what I always advise people to do, and I have some great stories that I talk about in the book, both mine and others, is if you're looking to become a business owner, you need to surround yourself with people that are also looking and that are business owners. And if you're looking to transition from being someone who's owned by their business to someone who experiences that true freedom and autonomy, you want to surround yourself with people that are also doing that and making those tough choices required to make that transition or that already have, because whether you're

Reid Tileston (11:08.494)

you want to or not, you will become like the people that you, that we choose to surround ourselves with. And it's a misconception.

Chris Kiefer (11:14.942)

You just described my favorite quote since I was in high school. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And I always, I know you're an Ironman athlete. This is the, when I'm explaining this to someone who's never heard this concept, you obviously have, I always say, imagine you have Chris version A and Chris version B, and both of them are going to go run an Ironman race. And Chris version A,

just signs up for the race and continues doing what he's doing, right? Chris version B leaves his city or his town or whatever and goes and finds five other people that have done a dozen Ironman races between the five of them and he just lives with them. Who do you think is gonna have a better chance of finishing that race? And it's like, no duh, like obviously.

Reid Tileston (12:08.572)

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Kiefer (12:12.798)

Though like you just are gonna absorb like what you're eating and what you taught, like your routine, your when you go to bed, when you wake up, your conversations over meals and things like that. It just all matters. But I think that's, yeah, I completely agree with the peer group of just like, where do you wanna be and how do you find people that are going to, that are either already there or on the same journey as you.

Reid Tileston (12:39.004)

Yeah. And what's interesting is we talk about triathlon. So the first triathlon I did, I did well in it and I was like top 1 % of the runners, probably top 5 % in biking and bottom second percentile in swimming. Right. Then as the years went on, I joined a group in San Francisco Bay area of avid open water, no open water, no wetsuit swimmers. And then let's fast forward to the, um, to the iron man.

My best event was swimming and it was solely because I spent those years with, and these are the swimmers that do the English channel that swim to Catalina Island, like that group of that caliber of people. I was getting my butt kicked the entire time. I could barely keep up. I didn't even really belong there, but over that course of time,

I literally switched where swimming was like, literally, I was like, I bought him 2 % too. It was my best. And I did well on that Ironman. It was my best event. And that to me on a personal level really illustrated that point that I just, by being around excellent swimmers, I actually became, you know, an okay swimmer.

Chris Kiefer (13:42.014)

Hmm. So I want to go back to this idea of like, for those listening to this podcast that are, um, not a entrepreneur by, you know, action, maybe mentally they're like, I'm an entrepreneur. I just don't know what to do or they're scared. What is like the, is there a, a secret or a way or a method to encourage or get people to, um,

dabble or have some, some success in entrepreneurship, uh, or in actions or things that are going to make them more suited to have success in entrepreneurship. Like how do I get more people to take the leap and go into entrepreneurship?

Reid Tileston (14:26.268)

Well, it's interesting because you're talking about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship, if you ask 10 people, doesn't really have like a concrete definition, right? If you want to associate entrepreneurship with being a business owner, it's not really the same thing, right? I mean, entrepreneurship is a mindset, I believe, and I would define it as I do in the book of an individual who takes action. And I would define entrepreneurial mindset as someone who seeks to maximize return while mitigating risk, but there's no definition on it per se. What I would say though is.

Chris Kiefer (14:33.694)

Mmm.

Reid Tileston (14:55.42)

If you're thinking about quitting, you know, transitioning from your nine to five job and thinking about engaging in some form of height, what you perceive as a higher risk endeavor, which is what I believe people associate business ownership and entrepreneurship with. This is the whole reason that I wrote this book is it's, it's a concrete first step to take to understand what it is like.

to be an entrepreneurial business owner. And there's two layers to it. One is if you want to minimize risk, here's the steps that you can follow. It's like the book that I really wish I'd had 16 years ago when I first went down this route. But secondly, it also provides not just a framework and steps, but it couples them.

with real world experience, a lot of mostly my real world experience, the in the trenches experience, right? If we're gonna talk about like an Ironman, it's like what it actually feels like, you know, to do the transition from biking to running and how painful that can be, right? And it gets to like the actual in the trenches stories to compliment the framework so that people can decide, hey, is this like a lifestyle that I think resonates with me?

I think it hopefully should, and I believe it will, and I certainly lead by example with it. But that's the reason I wrote the book is like a concrete, low cost, low time commitment, first step to take to get insights into what this world is like. And then outside of that, once they've taken that step, then there's other things that can happen. And it could be, I want to get an MBA. It could be, I want to go to a weekend workshop and spend eight hours a day, 10 hours a day going deep on this stuff. And then.

you know, get a peer group thereafter, but it's just an excellent first step to take.

Chris Kiefer (16:38.814)

And so are you saying that you would say the, or like baby steps would be like, read a book like this, talk to some people you think like getting an NBA or going to a Kickstarter accelerator weekend or some, uh, angel funding thing, just like starting to get around and see that's like the, the baby steps into, okay, I'm going to do this. Is that right?

Reid Tileston (17:03.164)

Yeah, the first step that I put in the book, which is just critical is assessment. Like understand what you want to get out of becoming an entrepreneur or a business owner. And I put, you know, a couple of questions in there. You just go to the website, grid it done, put in your email and get access to it. Because understanding what you're willing to do, what you're not willing to do is critical in not wasting what is the most precious valuable commodity out there. And that is time.

I see people go down a route of wanting to acquire a business, for example, spend a year, a year and a half, two years searching, and then maybe they find something, but they get close to the finish line and they can't pull the trigger. They back away. And I think a lot of that is due to the lack of assessment on the front end. And know that as that study I mentioned to kick things off, fulfillment, happiness comes as you're taking steps towards whatever your end goal is.

Ultimately though, if you can align that with more purpose, you're going to have higher levels of satisfaction and the assessment step while painful and less fun than locomotion is critical.

because it's an instrument that will allow you to optimize, optimize time in the process. And there's tons of books out there. There's tons of people out there, but yeah, my guidance, if you want to go down the route of either acquiring a business or buying into existing, you know, opportunity, I would tell you that a great first step in that process, in my opinion, the best, but hey, just what it's worth is read the book.

that'll cost you 99 cents to the end of May and approximately three hours to read. Because I've done this for long enough that a lot of people, you know, like will do calls with me and reach out to me and I have like a nice long queue for that. But what I find is that people are not always prepared for those calls and for that interaction. So that's why I wrote the, one reason I wrote the book so that people could just get a good baseline sense of where they're at in this process. Cause like you.

Reid Tileston (18:57.692)

I think the business owners make the country a better place for a ton of reasons, which we could definitely talk more about.

Chris Kiefer (19:04.318)

Hmm. What is the, um, the industries or the types of businesses in the next 10 years that you think are going to do well, um, given just all of the changes and technology and all that that's happening at the moment.

Reid Tileston (19:21.148)

You know, the innovation and the industries and all that stuff that I like is I'm a really big fan of things like the fork. Okay. It's been used for thousands of years and I don't think the fork is going to get out innovated anytime in the foreseeable future. And I've read some interesting analysis and studies that show that the most likely quote unquote innovations or processes that exist, that they're going to exist in the future. The biggest driver of what.

causes that is how long they've existed for the past. So me personally, I like the simplest, unsexy, basic things in the world. I like them so simple that I can explain them to a golden retriever or a six -year -old, right? I like simple, unsexy businesses. Every venture that I've been involved in, aside from a little bit of side investing, but every venture that I've truly thrown myself behind has been

one where the road to monetization is unsexy, basic and simple. Multi -unit, anytime fitness, top performing multi -unit, anytime fitness owner operator, you know, and I'll give you the key to that whole concept, which I also go into in the book. Find a town, and towns don't really exist anymore in this case, but find a town 10, 15 years ago that had no competition except for a Curves and a Mom and Pop shop.

open at any time fitness there and you'll make excellent money and make the community a better place. So just go to undesirable places potentially if you don't like small towns, and I personally do, and you can be successful that way. So my general guidance is go for the simple, what I like to get involved in, what I like to invest and I like to operate in is these simple, mainstream, unsexy businesses.

Chris Kiefer (21:12.286)

What are some other examples besides any time fitness?

Reid Tileston (21:16.572)

Alright, the list goes on and on and on and on.

Companies that do industrial cleaning, right? Companies that do dirty pumping, companies that do work on billboards, right? Companies that do maintenance of communication antennas, right? You name it, like this goes on and on and on. There's 32 million businesses in the US, six million of which have one employee. And I say W -2 employees, so there's obviously a ton of those other 26 million that do it all via 1099s and contractors. There's so many businesses out there that,

that you just don't realize are actually businesses, businesses that clean graffiti off walls. There's literally a business that cleans graffiti off of walls, right? That municipalities hire them to do and some private as well. Companies like that. And it's so interesting because one of the fun parts of searching for a business to buy is that you realize, searchers come to realize, wow, I had no idea what actually makes up the fabric of our economy here. And it takes that idea of...

entrepreneurship and business ownership being about the next Facebook or the next Google and puts it into the spectrum of these unsexy businesses out there. And there's a lot more traction around this as more people are starting to do it. But the key is that this is not something that happened five years ago. It's not something that is done with it's happening now. And given those demographic trends, it'll happen over the next couple of years. So the opportunity to buy existing businesses is pretty, it's pretty lucrative now.

Chris Kiefer (22:47.422)

Hmm. That's super got my wheels turning because I've, I have a personal background in the home service space and the painting world in particular. That's what my, my business helps painting companies automate all their backend processes. Super niche. And we literally work with painters. That's it. Residential painters, four to $15 million. That's our target. And it's like so specific. And when you tell people, probably people other than yourself,

They're blown away by the level of specificity of that business. That's like the number. I almost feel like there's a part of me that wants to say the more absurd the business seems or more, the absurd, the more absurdly specific a business is potentially the better the business is not. I get, I know it's not like a, you could, you could easily disprove that, but I feel like we're just some of the ones you rattled off. It's like,

Oh man, there's very niche businesses that are needed and, uh, I've never, you know, there's probably thousands of ideas. I've never even thought of.

Reid Tileston (23:56.604)

And the key to it is that I listen, I have an MBA and one of my passion projects now is I'm working towards a PhD where I do research on like small business and small business ownership. I'm exceptionally passionate about it, but I'll keep it simple. At a breakfast in La Jolla when I was in high school, my grandmother explained to me economics 101.

And that is that you have supply and you have demand and they meet at a certain point and that clears the market. So without demand for the product or service, there is no market. So when I think about businesses to get involved in, I want to have zero questions about if there was a strong concrete demand. I go into the story in the book and into the frameworks that I have to think about this, but I'll keep it simple in the sense that one business I bought did a lot of grease trap pumping.

And, you know, Greece, as long as there's restaurants and people in this particular state eat out, there's going to be grease generated and municipalities require that these grease traps get serviced and get pumped. So somebody's got to do it. Demand is essentially guaranteed. Right. I like businesses that fit that criteria.

Chris Kiefer (25:04.702)

Hmm. So what are there like, um, uh, I'm assuming there, you can hire a consultant to find a business to buy. Are there, I, there's gotta be websites and like, what is the, um, here's a funny question. What is, how fast could someone, and obviously like with coaching. So I'm here. I am not looking for a business.

Uh, I have my own business, but I'm intrigued by what you're saying. So if I was like, I want to buy a business, what would be like a blistering fast pace that I would own a business that I previously was not looking for and didn't know about if I was like. Serious about, all right, I'm going to go do this.

Reid Tileston (25:47.9)

Yeah. So my strong guidance is, uh, spend 99 cents and the three hours by the book that I, by the book that I wrote, because you know, Chris, like you have a business, you understand painting, all that good stuff, right? Like you kind of get it to an extent, but I'd still encourage you to go through and read it because before you invest any time looking on like, you know, bizbuysell .com or all the other resources I could send you to and everything like that, spend the time to do the assessment and figure out, is this something that you actually want to do?

Chris Kiefer (25:53.182)

Read the book first.

Reid Tileston (26:17.276)

Understand that there's steps you can take to maximize rewards and minimize the risk, which I outline in there. But ultimately don't go, you know, get an MBA because you decide like, Oh, I want to go get an MBA to do this. And I love MBAs by the way, or don't decide that I want to go and invest 20 hours of my time looking for a business or don't, you know, go take like a three hour workshop or a three day workshop just yet. Read the book first.

you know, go through the assessment, go through that kind of gut wrenching thing of, hey, this is intriguing, but do I actually want to do it? And then decide what the course of action is there. And that way you will, you'll optimize time for it. Because again, intrinsic reason that I decided to write this book is that, you know, this has been a great lifestyle for me and I'm super passionate about it for a lot of reasons we can keep on going into, um, because I've experienced that freedom, that autonomy, I've seen other people do it, but it's definitely not for everybody.

And I think that it's just a good practice to have like a good concrete first step before going down that route. If I don't want to use a broker, do it myself. Do I want to, you know what website so I go to, how should I engage it? The answers to those questions high level are in the book and the details will be answered as you keep on taking steps down that path. So read the book.

consider taking a class for it, find the right peer group. Those are kind of some of the steps, but it's literally all outlined in there. And I take success quite frankly. If someone reads a book and is like, it seems like a great life, but you know what?

It's just like not for me because they'll probably read it and then go find that business owner neighbor there and say, you're awesome. Like thank you for doing the work that keeps America great, you know, and things like that. But deciding not to do this is just as good an option as deciding to do it. It's just the key is make that decision earlier rather than later because the best things in life are the ones that we do not ultimately do because that leads us to the things that we do ultimately do. And hopefully those align more to what our ultimate purpose is.

Chris Kiefer (28:14.334)

What's your opinion on the feasibility of owning multiple businesses at the same time versus, it sounds like what you did was buy, exit, buy, exit a couple times, correct?

Reid Tileston (28:30.204)

Uh, no, I've, oh yes, yes. And no, yes, I've bought and sold, uh, but yes, I've also owned numerous businesses at numerous times as well. So what I would say is that put the cart before the horse essentially, or don't whatever that's saying, you know what I'm trying to say? Take it one step at a time. It's fine to have that vision that you want to do that, you know, some number of years down the road, but realize that in order to get there, you're probably going to have to do a lot of leg work.

to build that hold co or that absentee ownership up. And what I would tell you is my advice is get into it knowing that that's a good long -term vision to have, but ultimately there's gonna be a lot of work from getting to where you are now to getting to that point going forward. And I put in frameworks that I personally use and that I've seen people use very effectively around how to hire the right people, the right entrepreneurial employees, because entrepreneurial employees,

can provide owners that freedom to own multiple businesses. And it's always great that when you're blessed with the presence of a team member like that to know the right ways to cultivate them.

to know the right ways, the right culture to build that will help keep them around and to know how to effectively manage them. So I go into those things in the book, but I would tell you that having the right team members is a critical part of it. And sometimes by the way, they literally will just show up. I was opening a fitness center in a small town once I was hanging out on my laptop before the club even opened and out of nowhere, someone grabbed my arm really awkwardly actually. And she was like, Hey, are you the individual that wants to open that club here in town? And I said, yeah.

Yeah, you know, she's like, well, I just want you to know that I want to be your first member to sign up. And I'm really excited you're coming to town.

Reid Tileston (30:18.94)

That individual eventually became the manager of that club and she ran it for me for the better part of 12 years. So I was completely an absentee owner. I signed the checks. That was about it. Um, so it's interesting to think about that end vision of owning multiple businesses. I think the key critical part of that is having the right team members and knowing how to keep those right team members and keeping your eyes open to know that some of the best opportunities, the best people you'll meet are going to be ones that just literally show up to you in a coffee shop. So.

have your eyes wide open.

Chris Kiefer (30:51.518)

Interesting. So what else is I'm trying to think through grit, obviously, some of the title of the book. What is the you've read Angela Duckworth's book, I assume.

Reid Tileston (31:09.244)

I love Angela Duckworth. So again, going to the point of entrepreneurial employees and key team members.

Had a team member that had a terrible day, worst kind of day. They had to balance accounts receivable with field service management late at night, which is really difficult. Sounds easy, very difficult to do. And a technical error was causing all kinds of headaches for her. And I was trying to help her. I was helping her troubleshoot through it. And eventually she solved it at like nine o 'clock at night. And the next morning, by the way, it was going to be like a really early start. So terrible day, really morning the next morning. I was like, I'm like Marilyn.

you have an uncanny ability just to grid it done, right? And I just like randomly said that term she inspired me to. Then to the point of Pure Groups, I was at a forum a couple of days later with other business owners, CEOs, and I was telling that story and my buddy was like, wow.

You should trademark that. That's kind of a cool term. And that's how the concept was. That's how the title, that's how the term GRITD at DUN came about, which I use as a tagline for that business. And that's why I obviously, you know, titled the book that as well, because there was a lot there. It shows the power of entrepreneurial team members and it shows the power of having that right peer group. And I think that when it comes to being a successful entrepreneurial business owner, it's critical to have a GRITD at DUN mindset, because what is GRIT at its core?

or if you actually go through and read Angela Duckworth's book, or look at the really cool academic research that underlines it. It's a combination of passion and perseverance. And if I'm gonna say define what passion is, what drives passion? Purpose drives passion. So it all goes back to that first step of assessment.

Reid Tileston (32:53.5)

is a state that's not fun to be in. Locomotion is more fun. But if you do the right assessment and you couple it with your purpose, then you'll be able to get on a road that will lead to high levels of satisfaction and will endow you with the grit as Angela Duckworth would point out to go through those challenges, those setbacks, those walls, all those things that differentiate the people that go out and get things done versus those that ultimately, ultimately don't. So.

Thank you.

Chris Kiefer (33:24.222)

So this is probably gonna be my last question, but something that I think about often is a lot of times in my experience, it seems people, they say, I wanna start a business. And then they just go, based on their hobbies or interests, they say, this is the business, right? And I'm gonna figure out a way to be an influencer or whatever the thing is, right?

And that to me, based on what you're describing, that's not what I did, but I do feel like I love what I do. I'm like obsessive. I'm a nerd that's obsessed with data and tech and all that stuff. But I would say it sounds like you are unemotional when it comes to business investments or purchases. It's very much just like, is it correct that you're like the game for you or the

the allure or the excitement is finding the winners. It doesn't matter what it is. You just are looking for the good business that's got no low competition, high success. Is that correct? And because I would say to me, that seems like a more appropriate way to, if you're treating a business like an asset, like you want to buy an asset that's gonna return.

And I guess that maybe this goes back to the assessment of like, do you want a job? Then are you looking for something to fill your time? Are you looking for some money to, to fund some hobby? And I feel like sometimes people have hobbies that need to be funded by some other business, but they don't realize that they could run a business that funds this thing instead of trying to make the hobby of the business. Does that make sense?

Reid Tileston (35:14.46)

Yeah, it absolutely does. I mean, I live in Utah right now. You live in, you're in Idaho currently. A lot of people of my spectrum love the outdoors, right? And I think a lot of them are like, Oh, I want to get a job in the outdoors so I can live to my passion. That's fine. Other people take the mentality of, I just want to make a bunch of money so I can go off and go helicopter skiing in India, right? Whenever I want to. So there's no right. There's, there's no wrong answer to it. And, you know, I tend to agree that it's good to think about businesses with a keen, unsexy analytical framework.

100 % and I outline that in the book. I give the frameworks that I use and I've used successfully really for me though, to answer the question of what actually intrinsically drives me in small business. You might, you might find it surprising is that just the people it's the relationships that I get out of it. If I go all into an endeavor,

I can do so with a positive radiating, going to make this happen, grid it done attitude. And when I have that, I just find that the right kind of people surround me in the process naturally. And those people have enhanced my lives. Like I told you about the manager in ways that I did not even think were possible. So for me, this whole game of small business ownership, this whole game of, not to sound sappy, but life, it is just about the relationships and the people that I meet along the way.

So the relationships are the absolute critical part of it. The second part of it is that, you know, running small businesses, you can relate to and a lot of your audience can. The pilot paperwork is this high.

Because of that, I think that small business owners are uniquely positioned to take a nuanced view of government and take an activism in government that is very healthy and good for the country longer term. So to recap, you can have, if you follow the steps in the book, right, and you align it to your assessment and you go the low risk route, you can get autonomy, you can get freedom, you can control your calendar, you can own your upside. If you go all in, you could probably meet some proofs.

Reid Tileston (37:12.446)

cool people along the process. There are going to be some life -changing relationships and you'll become a better American citizen in the process. So to me it is a no -brainer for anyone to consider looking at. It's a lot of work. The failure can be costly especially if you follow my advice and get an SBA 7 -day loan that's personally guaranteed to lever up to buy a business. So the risk can be real. It's a lot of work for sure.

With that said though, it is, I think, a great opportunity to look at, particularly because if you're the average American making $1 ,118 per week, which is a median U .S. wage, let's gross that up to 70K a year with some value of benefits and everything, you can find a business that's doing $500 ,000 of, just we'll say, profits or cash flow to the owner.

Lever up with 80 % SBA financing, bridge the rest of that with your own personal equity. Assume you don't grow the business at all and that you sell it for the same multiple that you bought it for in 10 years and your debt's paid off. You'll make more money during the ownership time and you'll leave with a seven figure exit at the end. So to me, it's an absolute no brainer to consider looking at as a career option. And obviously I wrote the book, Grit It Done, grititdone .com, 99 cents, end of May.

three hours that just provides a bird's eye view of a nine steps of how to do it complete with all the frameworks coupled with the actual anecdotal stories of what it's like to be a business owner. Just a no brainer, I think for a very time efficient and low cost step to a step to take.

Chris Kiefer (38:44.542)

Awesome, and what are your two other book recommendations?

Reid Tileston (38:47.58)

So the other book recommendation, which is also going to be the movie recommendation is Shawshank Redemption. The book is by Stephen King. It's a great one. The movie is just, I think, one of the best movies to watch. Life is unfair. Think long -term and the right thing will end up happening to you. So a lot of good life lessons out of it. And the other book I'd recommend reading is just one of the best written books that I've ever come across. It's called The Guns of August by Barbara Tushman. It's about...

the outbreak of World War I, if you'd believe that, but she writes it, she has a way with, Pulitzer Prize won it, she has a way with words that is absolutely unrivaled. So from a literary perspective, the guns of August, referring to August 1914 and the outbreak of World War I, very fascinating topic, but it is written in a way that is, I can't even put words to it.

Chris Kiefer (39:25.63)

What's the book title?

Chris Kiefer (39:39.166)

Awesome. And if people want to get in touch with you, what is your preferred method of contact?

Reid Tileston (39:44.252)

Yeah. So you can go to grid at done .com. In addition to that, I'm active on a LinkedIn and getting more active on a X as well. So you can certainly follow me there for trends on entrepreneurial business ownership and all that good stuff.

Chris Kiefer (39:57.182)

Awesome, well, appreciate you taking the time to come on today. It's a great conversation, got my wheels turning and I'm sure many other listeners as well. And yeah, I'm glad that we were able to connect and maybe see you around.

Reid Tileston (40:10.556)

Absolutely. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.