Gold Nuggets
- “The differentiating factor between success and failure in business comes down to systems.”
“But you have to remember that businesses are first built on a foundation of human beings.”
- “There’s always been a difference between being an entrepreneur and being a businessperson. You start a business; you’re a businessperson. An entrepreneur is more in the make-up of who you are.”
- “If someone offered you the perfect job, doing exactly what you like to do, and the job came with what you considered to be a good salary and benefits package; and if they guaranteed your job security, would you take that job?”
“There is not a single entrepreneur on this planet that would take that job.”
- “Outlier entrepreneurs are always looking for ways to better their lives.”
- Marco is giving away free access to his 12-day course. Send him an email with the subject: Podcast. (Contact details below)
- “When you knock on the door of opportunity, do not be surprised if work answers.” – Brendon Burchard
Meet Marco Robert
Our guest is Marco Robert, inspirational speaker, international business consultant, mentor, and outlier entrepreneur. After being laughed out of the bank with his business plan, he was determined to follow his dream; he started on his entrepreneurial journey, and by the time he was 30 years old, he was worth more than 7-figures. Decades of experience in business have allowed him to not only attain his own success, but to help others find their “flame”, become outlier entrepreneurs, and reach the levels of success that they yearn for.
Smart Man, Smarter Woman References
We talk about a lot in each episode; however, we don’t want you to miss a thing! Here are some key items were mentioned if you want to take a closer look.
Website Recommendations:
https://www.marcorobert.com/
Book Recommendation:
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
Stay Connected:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarcojRobert
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iMarcoRobert
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/MarcoRobert
Twitter: https://twitter.com/campionese
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Transcript
Steve Loates (00:00):
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the podcast Smart Man, Smarter Woman. A podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And thank you so much for joining us today. I am Steve Loates.
Juliet Aurora (00:15):
And I am Juliet Aurora.
Steve Loates (00:16):
And we are your co-hosts. And before I introduce our special guests for today, perhaps my wonderful co-host, the smarter woman herself Juliet, would like to say a few words. How are you doing today, Juliet?
Juliet Aurora (00:30):
I am Excellent. Thank you Steve. It actually was a great morning. So even though I’ve been very upset that my pool has closed for the last, it’s only been a week, but it feels like it’s been months since it’s been closed. My puppy and I, I guess our puppy and I, have gotten into this walking groove in the morning that has replaced my swimming time. And we had a great walk. So it was a great way to start out the day. So I am excellent, thank you.
Steve Loates (00:57):
Awesome. So you are wide awake, but I do see which no one else can see, our puppy is sleeping.
Juliet Aurora (01:05):
Yes, he’s sleeping in the background.
Steve Loates (01:08):
Apparently you must have worn him out. So anyway, that-
Juliet Aurora (01:11):
He is 10. So.
Steve Loates (01:12):
Yeah, well and 10 dog years is a little more than 10 in human years. But anyway, so we’ve got a great show for you today. We have a very special guest. His name is Marco Robert. So let’s bring in the guest Marco and welcome. And thank you for joining us today from Sunny Arizona.
Marco Robert (01:31):
A thank you so much for having me guys. I’m super excited to be here.
Steve Loates (01:34):
Our pleasure. And I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. Marco’s background, he’s a speaker, a management consultant. But over the last two decades, he’s delivered his messages to audiences in over 30 countries around the world. And his message is something that should certainly interest and resonate with our audience. And that is, what is the profile of a successful entrepreneur and how can you grow and scale your business. He’s also the creator of his own business management methodology called BOSS, which is used by thousands of companies worldwide, to help them pinpoint their own challenges and then find some solutions.
Steve Loates (02:22):
But before we get into his business management system, and how to grow and scale your business, maybe for the first few minutes Marco, you wouldn’t mind sharing a little bit about who you are, what do you do, who do you help and a little bit about your own entrepreneurial journey as to what got you to where you are today.
Marco Robert (02:43):
Awesome. Thank you so much Steve. Thank you everybody for having me. I’m so excited. The first thing I need to say is that I’m actually Canadian. I was born and raised in a little town up north, basically smashed on the border of Quebec and Ontario, but on the Quebec side. And I grew up in a family where my parents actually went from being nurses to starting a business when I was nine years old.
Marco Robert (03:05):
So I grew up in this world of business. My friends actually owned restaurants when I was a kid. So going through high school, I was kind of the odd kid, because I always knew I was going to be a business owner. See, when my friends wanted to become engineers and doctors and nurses and firemen. I’ve always known that I was going to be a business person. So it made sense for me to actually, after serving in the military, to go back to school and graduate with a business degree.
Marco Robert (03:36):
And at first I wasn’t sure. I didn’t feel I had the confidence to start my own business. I certainly did not have the finance to start my own business. My degrees is in hospitality management. So I worked in the hotel and restaurant industry for a few years. And then one day I said, “Okay, you know what? I think I figured this stuff out, and I’m going to start my own company.”
Marco Robert (03:54):
So like a good student of business, I put together a nice business plan, and I walked into my local bank and I said, “Look at my business plan, I need to raise some money because I want to start my own business.” The gentlemen looked at me, he flipped through the pages of my business plan. And then he grinned. And I think he actually laughed and he said, basically this is what he said, “kid, kid, kid, nobody is going to give you money.” Right?
Marco Robert (04:23):
And I had worked on this businessman for months. And the fact that this guy laughed at me, I was so angry. Now, I don’t want to put down any Canadian banks. I’m not going to say the name of the bank, because I could just probably say the initials. It starts with a T and it ends with a D.
Marco Robert (04:50):
But that guy laughed me out of the bank. So I walked out of the bank and I was really angry. And for several days, I was distraught and I didn’t know what to do. After three or four days, I started to pick myself up. And then I thought to myself, “You know what? This guy is not going to define my life. This guy is not going to decide what’s going to happen for me. What does he know about me? He doesn’t know anything about me.”
Marco Robert (05:18):
And I could have gone back, I had a really good job. I actually was managing a, in Quebec, there’s this franchise. It’s very similar to TGI Fridays. So if you know TGI Fridays, I was basically managing a TGI Fridays. It’s called The Sports Cage in Quebec. And it was a good job, I was making good money. And I could have just gone back and do that. But I remember turning to my fiance at the time and saying, “We need to figure this out, because there’s no way I’m going back to getting a job.”
Marco Robert (05:46):
And we rolled up our sleeves. And to make a very, very long story short, we ended up leaving Canada, moving to Central America, we started two different restaurants in a small town called Antigua, Guatemala. At the end, we had about 50 employees. We sold our mini portfolio of restaurants. And by the time I was 30 years old, I was sitting on the beach in Puerto Vallarta Mexico, I was quote, unquote, retired, I was worth more than seven figures, and I had achieved my dream.
Marco Robert (06:24):
And today, when I look back at the journey, I can see that moment at the TD bank as a defining moment of my life. Because it would have been so easy to give up at that point, it would have been so easy to give up. My girlfriend, had a really good job, she worked for the Quebec government. She was in the hospital system in the health care system in the laboratory. She had a good job, like a career, she could have stayed there for the rest of her life.
Marco Robert (06:54):
I had a good job, but we decided to take the entrepreneurial journey, and it’s completely changed me. I would not be where I am today. If I showed you where I’m from, if I pinpoint it on the map, nobody leaves that place. You understand? It’s a good place to grow up, but it’s kind of the end of the world. You don’t drive through my region. You go there, and then you, you go there. That’s it. It’s a very, very small place, the entire county has only 15,000 people. So it’s pretty cool that I was able to escape and move on to my journey, and all because of my entrepreneurial spirit.
Juliet Aurora (07:38):
Excellent. I love that story. I always love hearing where there’s one defining moment. We ask a lot of the guests who come on the show, “What is it that made you become an entrepreneur decide to become an entrepreneur?” And for some of them, it’s because their parents were entrepreneurs, or they had this calling. But I love it when there is a defining moment that you can actually say, “Here is where I realized that this is my calling.” And love it. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Steve Loates (08:09):
Yeah. No, that was great. I would like to get into a little bit now Marco, if it’s okay with you. I’m intrigued by one of the things I found out about you, whereas you talk about what is the profile of a successful entrepreneur. So [inaudible 00:08:29] performing. We meet lots of entrepreneurs where entrepreneurs are just in. There are different kinds of people. So I’d really love to get a little more about what you’ve discovered is the profile of a successful entrepreneur.
Marco Robert (08:44):
Yep. Well I’ve always wanted to be a business owner. So right after college, I started to read a lot. So I was in my early 20s, and I came across I don’t know if you guys remember Tony Robbins. He was on TV 24/7 in the early 1990s. So I bought his course. I mean, it was a big deal for me. I think I paid $325 US to pay for his course. I was not making $325 US per week at that time. So it was a big deal for me.
Marco Robert (09:17):
But it opened up my perspectives about the world and I started to say, “I probably need to step up my game, I need to take more responsibility about myself.” So I started to read and I read extensively to the point where there were days where I would read three books on the same day. I took some speed reading classes, and I couldn’t stop. I mean I was devouring, devouring information. And at some point, I came to this realization. I realized that the differentiating factor between success and failure in business, came down to systems.
Marco Robert (09:52):
So organizations or companies that actually were built on a foundation of systems, tend to succeed much better, and the proof is in the pudding like they say. If you look at corporate organizations, they’re systemized, if you look at franchises, they’re systemized. If you look at independently owned businesses, they’re usually not that systemized and they fail at an alluring rate, where franchises tend to survive much longer, they tend to have a much greater rate of success.
Marco Robert (10:24):
So that was a theory. I’m 23 years old, I come up with this theory. If I systemize everything, it’s going to work. So I was managing a hotel in Montreal, Canada at the time. And I went back to work and I started to systemize. It was a concept, a theory. So I systemized the way we were taking on reservations, how we greeted the customers when they came in, how the banquet department was actually operating, I had systemized their housekeeping, how to clean a room.
Marco Robert (10:51):
I remember dividing the room, I think, into four areas. And we reduced the amount of time that the average maid would take to clean up a room. So we went from, I think a maid was cleaning eight rooms per day, and we went to above 10 room. I think so a lot of things, I was just systematizing, and it worked. And in 1993, 1994, when Canada was going through a recession, most of the hotels in Montreal were actually declining, my hotel was doing better. So that was pretty cool.
Marco Robert (11:24):
So and then I got hired by this restaurant that I’m telling you about this TGI Fridays, and I did the same thing. I just walked in, and with my team of other managers, we basically systemized everything. And then we took a restaurant that was losing about $100,000 a year. Turning it around in about one year, the owner actually made $100,000. So he went from losing 100,000 to netting over 100,000. That was a big deal.
Marco Robert (11:53):
So that’s when I said, “Okay, well if it’s system, let me just start my own company.” So I flew to Central America and then I systemized my businesses, it worked. I find myself on the beach, enjoying a pretty good life. And I’m like, “Wow, I figured it out. Right?” What I had not figured out, by the way, is how to be an investor. Okay?
Marco Robert (12:12):
So that winter, I invested a lot of money with a partner of mine. And the guy ended up running away with most of my money. So I lost a lot of money in the winter of 2000. So I had to reinvent myself. I said, “Okay, well, I’m 30 years old, what am I going to do?” So my wife, and I ended up moving to California, and she had a career. So she, she worked in the laboratory business. And I said, “Okay, well maybe I can parlay my experience and education and business track record into consulting. So that’s when I started my consulting practice.
Marco Robert (12:47):
And my processes were simple. “Hey, guys, I figured it out. I know to become successful, we have to do systemize everything.” That’s what I did. I worked with clients, and I systemized everything. But sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t work. And I could not figure out why. I mean literally, I would work with two different businesses and implement the same strategies, the same system, the same methodology, have the same conversation with two business owners, and one would just, his business would explode, and the other one would be like, “Whoa, I don’t know what’s going on. It’s not working.”
Marco Robert (13:20):
And I could not figure this out to save my life. In fact, it was keeping me up at night. Because it was starting to affect my reputation. Because these people who were not seeing success, became disgruntled. And then they would be like, “Oh, you know what? I paid you a lot of money.” And one day, I was actually attending a speech from another consultant, a friend of mine, his name was, I’ll remember his name. Knute. His name is Knute Schroder he was from Europe somewhere, maybe Germany or something like that.
Marco Robert (13:49):
And he was speaking, he was speaking about the power of business and systems and all… We understood each other really well. And then he said, “But you guys have to remember that businesses are first built on a foundation of human beings.” And I’m like, “Oh my God,” it was the missing link. It was the missing me. At that moment. It’s like my entire life unraveled. I understood that the reason why I had succeeded in business, is because I was the kind of guy that was not going to allow some banker at TD to come and tell me not to do it. And the reason why my client was succeeding is because he was that same kind of guy. And the reason why that other client was not succeeding is because he was not that kind of guy.
Marco Robert (14:39):
And I’m like, “Whoo.” That night, I remember it was an evening presentation. I didn’t sleep that night, I went back home and I’m like, “Oh my God, I figured it out. There’s a profile. There is a profile of a successful person.” And then I spent the next several years trying to understand what that profile was. Now if you look me up, you’ll find out that I have interacted with Hollywood celebrities, billionaires, multi-multi-millionaires, I have clients all over the world. And I’ve been very fortunate and privileged to hang out with a lot of very, very, very successful people.
Marco Robert (15:14):
So what I’ve done over the last 15 years or so, is I have codified, codified that person. Who’s that person? Now first of all, I had to give it a name. I call the person, the outlier entrepreneur. Why? Because outlier means, you’re willing to be different, You’re willing to stand out. That’s an outlier. And the entrepreneur, because to me, there’s always been a difference between being an entrepreneur and being a business person. You’re a business person, okay? Bravo, you own a business. Okay? So, hey, congratulations, you start a business, you’re a business person.
Marco Robert (15:52):
An entrepreneur is more, it’s in the makeup of who you are. It’s in your philosophy. And by the way, the the word entrepreneur means a person who undertakes stuff, that’s a French word, it means the person who undertakes. So what do they undertake? What do entrepreneurs undertake? Well, they undertake to save the world, they undertake to find solutions, they undertake to create value. That’s what entrepreneurs do. Entrepreneurs find solutions to all sorts of problems, because they want to profit from it. Right? The business person is like, “Okay, I own a business. I hope somebody is going to come to my business,” and then you can hear birds chirp, nothing happens.
Marco Robert (16:40):
But the entrepreneur is like, “Okay, hey, there’s a problem in my community, there’s a problem in this industry, and it is my job to figure it out. It’s my job to create value, I cannot monetize somebody that is not valuable.” It’s a completely different thinking. So the person who achieves a lot more, is actually an outlier. Somebody who is self-affirmed, not afraid to stand up for who they are. Outlier, and also someone who is devoted to the creation of value for the world, the entrepreneur.
Marco Robert (17:19):
Now, it’s kind of the story. I’m happy to go into detail because what I did is I broke down, that person into what it means to be an alpha entrepreneur. But that’s the story of how I came up with it. That makes sense?
Steve Loates (17:33):
Yeah. No, absolutely, that’s great. That would leave me to I think another question then, if someone came to you and they’re thinking they’re an entrepreneur, they’re thinking they want to start their own business, but they have no experience of being an entrepreneur. What kind of advice would you give to them?
Marco Robert (18:00):
Mm-hmm (affirmative), wow. Well, so because first of all, I’m very systematic in that process. And I do have a system for addressing and answering that question. First of all, we need to understand where the person fits on the gradient scale of building a business. There’s many different levels. Where are you? The first question I asked, and by the way, if you go to my website, marcorobert.com you’ll see at the top, I asked that question, and the question is this.
Marco Robert (18:31):
You want to start a business? Okay. Now, let me ask you a question. If somebody came to you, and offered you a really good job, where you get paid a good salary, and you have the kind of benefits that you feel are good benefits, and they can guarantee that job. Would you take the job?
Marco Robert (18:49):
And if the person says, “Yeah, of course. I mean, of course,” I said, “Okay, don’t start a business, go find that job. Go find the job.” Because there is not a single entrepreneur on this planet who would take that job. Entrepreneurs don’t take the job. Now business owners would, entrepreneurs don’t take the job. There is not an amount of… Because we don’t work for money. We don’t work for security. We have a flame that is driving us. I’m driven by a flame. I’m driven to an expansion of myself and that’s, that’s the first thing that needs to happen.
Marco Robert (19:28):
If you don’t have that, and by the way, some of my clients have gone back and actually I’m thinking of one very specifically, I’ve worked with hundreds of people, but I have one in my head right now. He’s in Norway. And he had been struggling in his business. And when I asked him this question, he said, “Of course I would take the job.” And I said, “Go get the job.” And this guy was highly educated. He wanted to start a consulting practice. And he had been struggling for a couple years and investing money and losing money and he was not going anywhere. So I said, “Go get a job.” And then the last four or five years, he’s made probably about $1.6, $1.7 million working as a consultant. He’s getting a job and slowly taken on.
Marco Robert (20:16):
So the first couple of years, that’s all he did. He had a job, he’s a highly educated guy, speaks several languages, had a lot of experience. He was making about $250,000 per year in his job. So he did well the first couple years and he was able to pay back his debt, he was able to rebuild the foundation of his marriage, because he was trying to start a business and he was not… His marriage was getting affected by that. And then after a couple of years, he called me back. I coached him more than he ended up starting to take on some clients part time. He’s done very well, and now he’s ready. Now, he’s probably going to actually quit his job.
Marco Robert (20:59):
Now he’s sitting on a great portfolio, he’s put probably four or $500,000 in his retirement account in the last five years. He’s been able to pay back all of his debt, he’s had a good lifestyle, spend a lot of time with his kids. And now he’s like, “You know what? I think I’m ready to actually go back.” It’s five years. And the guy was like 36 maybe when I met, and he’s probably about 40, 41 right now. No big deal, right? And in the process, he became an entrepreneur. So what kind of advice… Sorry?
Juliet Aurora (21:34):
So do you think that being an entrepreneur is something that you can learn, as opposed to something that you’re born with?
Marco Robert (21:44):
I think, yes. Yes, I believe that you can learn it, but you need to want to learn it. You understand? Some people and I’ll tell you how I see it. I’ll explain to you how that works. I think we can divide the entire world, entire world into two groups of human beings. And the small minority is these outlier entrepreneurs. It’s the small minority, okay? 4, 5, 6, 8%. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a very small minority of human beings that are already outlier entrepreneurs.
Marco Robert (22:14):
The rest of the world is what I call normal, average ordinary people. And I have lived in five countries, and I’ve traveled to probably another 30 countries. And no matter where you go around the world, you’ll find that our normal, average ordinary people. Now the normal, average ordinary people in Canada, are slightly different than the normal, average ordinary people in the United States. They’re very different than the normal, average ordinary people in Mexico or Guatemala or the Bahamas where I lived as well for a while.
Marco Robert (22:39):
But there’s this group, and it’s the vast majority of people, they’re just normal. Now there’s nothing wrong with being a normal person. Your parents, the people who raised you were normal, your neighbors are normal. Your kids are normal, your cousins are normal. Most people are normal, they fit in, and it’s totally fine. It becomes wrong, when you want to raise your hand to the world and say, “I want more, I want more out of this life Marco, I expect more. I want the luxuries of life. I want the lifestyle, I want the relationships, I want the connections, I want the fancy watches, I want the trips, I want more. But I also want to be like my cousin Jerry.” See that, that’s where the disconnection happens.
Marco Robert (23:29):
So that’s the first step, you need to be willing. So what I find is that, in the vast majority of human beings who are normal, average ordinary people, you have probably about 20%, who have the flame, that’s what I call it. The flame is still scintillating, the flame is still burning. They’re like, “You know, I don’t know man, I don’t know why. I can feel something inside of me. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel something. I feel like I was born for something bigger than this.” And they’re willing to explore that flame. Those people I can help. Those people I can help, I can push them to becoming outlier entrepreneurs.
Marco Robert (24:17):
But the people who don’t even have the flame, are the people who are not even looking for it. I cannot help those people. I don’t even try. So the people who are listening to your podcast, I’m going to make a big assumption. A lot of them are part of that 20%. A lot of the people, probably a vast majority of the people who actually are listening to your podcast, are part of that 20%. And you probably have a small percentage of people who are already outlier entrepreneurs. Because outlier entrepreneurs are always looking for ways to better their life. They’re always looking, we spent our lives looking for information like you guys are providing on this podcast. Because if I can find one thing, one little thing, one distinction, it’s going to change my life.
Marco Robert (25:00):
So while the average guy out there might be watching the Saturday night hockey game, the outlier entrepreneur is actually listening to a podcast Saturday night trying to figure out, “What’s the one thing I can understand to help my clients, to help my life to help my family, to move the world, one inch further.” So that’s what it is. That makes sense?
Steve Loates (25:21):
Yep.
Juliet Aurora (25:22):
Definitely. And I guess more than anything, you’ve made it sound very exciting to be an entrepreneur, that I hope that our audience who are listening, who are mostly, they might all be entrepreneurs, other than immediate family and friends that we kind of say, “Hey, go listen to our podcast.” That I hope that they’re patting themselves on the back or recognizing how unique of individuals that they are.
Marco Robert (25:49):
I mean, it’s the most, I’m going to tell you something, if you look at it from a biological perspective, it is encoded in our DNA. It is. You see, most people do not choose to be outlier entrepreneurs, but we are all born outlier entrepreneurs. It’s encoded in the DNA. It’s in to help one another, to create solutions for the community, to help us each other support each other, is encoded in our DNA. Look it up. Seriously I’m not joking, okay? And that’s the reason why, human beings today thrive on this planet and monkeys don’t.
Marco Robert (26:25):
Because a million years ago, there was not a big difference between monkeys and human beings. Why is it that we thrive? Well, biologists and other groups of scientists tell us that it’s because there’s this yearning that seems to be encoded in our DNA. This yearning to help one another, this yearning to exchange value with one another. But we live in a world that is so thriving, we do so well. You don’t have to be an entrepreneur. You can skate by for the rest of your life and just think, because, with technologies and with advancements in science and so on and so forth, one entrepreneur can basically, could change the world and make the world a much better place for everybody else. So to me, it’s just the most enthralling thing. It’s part of who we are. Right?
Juliet Aurora (27:18):
Exciting. Very exciting.
Steve Loates (27:19):
It is and you know, I think it was described to me once and I don’t remember who said it to me now. But we were talking about the differences between the entrepreneurial mentality and the mentality of a business person or someone who is quite happy working for someone else, and they’re living a happy life. They’re happy people. But what is the difference? And it was described to me, it’s like two rides at the fair. And one is the merry go round, and the other one is the roller coaster. And the entrepreneur, looks for that roller coaster.
Steve Loates (28:05):
Yu talk about it’s in their DNA, but there’s also something inside that entrepreneur who know “I don’t want to be going on that merry go round. I want to go on that roller coaster over there.” Knowing as with every roller coaster, there’s downs. It’s not a steady ride up. But the ride is something every entrepreneur needs and enjoys. And I thought that was a really great way of describing… I mean, it’s a generalization for sure, but it’s a great way of describing the mentality of an entrepreneur versus that someone who’s very, very happy working for someone else. So I thought-
Marco Robert (28:49):
I agree. 100%, 100%.
Steve Loates (28:52):
That was great.
Marco Robert (28:53):
We would rather have ups and downs, instead of the boring steadiness of the merry go round.
Steve Loates (28:58):
Yeah, absolutely. And that brings us to the part of the show, called the Smart Man, Smarter Woman version of James Lipton’s actor studio, where we ask all of our guests six questions. The same six questions, and if you’re ready to go Marco, I’d like to get started on it.
Marco Robert (29:20):
Go for it.
Steve Loates (29:22):
All right. Question number one. What one word best defines an entrepreneur?
Marco Robert (29:32):
Outlier.
Steve Loates (29:35):
What profession other than your own? Would you like to attempt?
Marco Robert (29:41):
None.
Steve Loates (29:41):
Okay.
Marco Robert (29:44):
Zero. I’m very, very happy in what I do. In fact, I tried this thing called retirement when I was in my early ’30s. And I made a decision I’m never even going to retire. Some months, I worked 12 months like this year because we’ve been cooped up. But there’s months where I worked five or six months, and I will never stop. I’m going to be in my ’80s, and I’m still going to be working because this is not to me. The lines between working and enjoying my life are blurred, it’s the same thing.
Marco Robert (30:13):
So you could say that what I’m doing right now is work. Because I’m here to promote what I do and let the world know about Marco Robert. But look at how much fun we’re having. So to me, it’s the same. So I’m never going to stop doing this. So I would not trade this with anything else. And people sometimes come to me to say, “You know, you’re very lucky that you have found what you actually are meant to be.” Yes, you can call it lucky, you can call it discernment, you can call it obsession, passion. Whatever you want to call it, but I am extremely, extremely happy to be what I am. I will never do anything else.
Steve Loates (30:49):
That’s great. And I can tell you out of all the episodes we’ve done, you are only the second person to answer that question with, “I don’t want to try anything else. I’m perfectly happy doing what I’m doing.” So that’s great. What profession would you like never to attempt?
Marco Robert (31:07):
Oh, you know I have so much respect for school teachers, to unruly kids. So, I don’t think that would work for me. It’s not in my makeup to actually to herd all of these kids and teenagers. I’m just looking at who I was when I was in high school. Man, I would not have wanted to be my teacher. So I have the most respect for those people, and I would not want to attempt to do this. Well I like to teach. I love to teach and train and I do seminars, and I organize conventions and events. But I train people who want to be trained. To try and force someone to say, “You know what? You have to learn your ABCs and you have to learn your multiplication tables.” Nope, not for me.
Steve Loates (32:07):
Fair enough. What sound or noise do you love?
Marco Robert (32:13):
Oh, wow. The first thing that came to my mind when you said that is, I have a beautiful, beautiful memory. I was in my early ’30s. And we lived in… Well, actually, I was in my late ’20s. And I lived in Guatemala. And we found this deserted beach in a place called Monte Rico in Guatemala. There was nobody, it’s on the Pacific Ocean, and the sand is black. It’s a black beach. It’s the most amazing thing. And nobody was there, and my ex wife and I sat in front of the beach and we looked at the sun setting for like two hours, neither of us said a word. And all we did is look at the ocean and hear the sound of the waves crashing.
Marco Robert (32:59):
You know sometimes if I’m going through a stressful moment in my life, I take myself back to that moment sitting on that beach in Guatemala and just listening to the waves crashing on the beach. It’s one of the most calming and one of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever experienced.
Steve Loates (33:17):
Awesome. What book would you recommend every entrepreneur should read?
Marco Robert (33:29):
I love that you’re asking me that question, because I’m a huge reader. I believe in reading a lot. There are so many. And when people come to me, it’s kind of a case by case, but there is one that is shocking, that will allow you to discover who you are. That will give you a perspective on life that very few books can actually give you a perspective like that on life. It’s going to make you reassess who you are, and try to understand who you are. And that book is called Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It was one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. Not that I agree with everything, but it’s a very, very powerful book. And the book is 1,300 pages long. So it’s almost like you have to climb Mount Everest.
Marco Robert (34:22):
The first 400 pages, you want to shoot yourself in the head, nothing happens for 400 pages. But as then, and if one of my mentors hadn’t urged me to read the book, I would have never read that book. Because it’s a work of labor to read that book, but who you are at the end of the book, is a completely different person than who you were at the beginning of the book, and who you are at the end of the book is much more aligned with who you’re supposed to be. I think that book allows you to discover the truest essence of who you are. So that’s a great book. I invite everybody to read it.
Steve Loates (35:00):
Okay, when your own entrepreneurial journey is completed, what do you hope your legacy is?
Marco Robert (35:10):
Oh, wow, great question. This is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about just in the last year or so. I’m 50 years old, and my fiance is much younger than me, and we decided to have a child. I’ve never had kids. So I have a six month old, six month old little boy. And for the first time, legacy was always in the back of my mind. Now, it’s at the forefront of what I think about all the time. And I think what’s going to happen is, I’m gearing up to creating some sort of an entrepreneurship institution, an institute of entrepreneurship, that will outlast me, that will continue to teach my methodologies to business owners and entrepreneurs for decades and decades to come. So that’s what we’re looking at setting up right now. We’re working on that. So that’s probably-
Steve Loates (36:02):
Terrific.
Marco Robert (36:02):
Probably what’s going to happen.
Steve Loates (36:03):
Yeah, that’s a great like-
Marco Robert (36:05):
Look for it.
Steve Loates (36:06):
That’s a great-
Marco Robert (36:06):
The Marco Robert Institute of Entrepreneurship, that’s probably what’s going to be called.
Steve Loates (36:10):
Absolutely, we’ll keep our eye out for it. That’s great. Well, as we drawing to a close here with this episode, do you have any final words Marco you would like to share with our audience?
Marco Robert (36:23):
Absolutely. One thing I want to say is this. First of all, I really, really, really enjoyed this. I think you guys, I like the way that you’re presenting this. It’s pretty awesome that you’re doing this service to the community. So you guys are totally outlier entrepreneurs, just by the fact that you’re willing to devote so much energy to a group of people. And I actually recorded a course, it’s a 12 day course that I did recently. And we’re gearing up to actually selling it. So we’re going to create a web page and stuff, and so on and so forth.
Marco Robert (36:55):
But everyone who’s listening to this, if they actually want to have access to the course, I’ll give it to them for free. All they have to do is send me and my team an email. And all you have to do is in the subject of the email, right podcast, and then ask for the course, it’s called the outlier entrepreneur course. And it’s a journey of who you need to be to become an outlier entrepreneur. And we’re probably going to be selling it for $1,000, 800 bucks, $2,000. I’m not sure exactly how much we’re going to sell it for. But everybody who’s listening to this, if you want to just send an email to contact@marcorobert.com, that’s M-A-R-C-O-R-O-B-E-R-T.com. So contact@Marcorobert.com. And again, just mention podcast, and say, I would love to have access to the 12 day course and we’ll send it to you for free.
Steve Loates (37:44):
Perfect. And we’ll make sure that information goes in the show notes as well. And with that email address, thank you for that. That’s a great offer to our audience. And Juliet, do you have any final words before we close it down for another episode?
Juliet Aurora (37:59):
I guess more than anything, I’m just so excited that I’m an entrepreneur. Marco has made me. There’s so many people that you know, “Yes, I’m a business person, or yes, I’m an entrepreneur.” But don’t really recognize how unique it is. So I guess, thank you for that you’ve just made me feel more proud that I am part of that designation of entrepreneur.
Steve Loates (38:22):
Perfect.
Marco Robert (38:23):
Thank you so much for saying that. I really, really appreciate you saying that. I was in Pakistan exactly a year ago speaking at a conference. And basically what I shared with you, is what I shared on stage of that conference. And some buddies just reached out to me, a kid that I met at that conference. And there were thousands and thousands of people, it was an international convention. And he said, “Ever since you left Pakistan Marco, everybody is still talking about you because of that talk. Because you ignited something inside of us.”
Marco Robert (38:55):
And so there’s nothing actually makes me more proud of what I do than when I hear people like him, that kid his name is Abdullah, and then you saying something like that. Because this is my mission. That’s what I live for. I live to help people recognize their truest identity, which is the identity of that outlier entrepreneur or that entrepreneur that lives inside of us, right? So thank you so much for saying that Juliet, I appreciate it.
Steve Loates (39:21):
Awesome. And that brings us to this episode’s Words of Wisdom. And I like this one. It’s from Brendon Burchard. And it is, “When you knock on the door of opportunity, do not be surprised if work answers.”
Juliet Aurora (39:44):
Perfect.
Steve Loates (39:44):
I’ll let you think about that one. And so again, thank you very much Marco for joining us. Thank you very much Juliet, my awesome co-host. But most importantly as always, thank you to you our audience for tuning in and giving us a listen. We sincerely hope you found some value here today and I’m pretty sure you did. And if you like the podcast, we’d love it if you subscribe, you can find us in all the normal places you know what they are. Or you can go to the website, smartmansmarterwoman.com. So thank you again. Until next time, take good care of yourself and those that you love. Bye for now.
Song by Adam Vitovsky / CC BY 3.0
