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welcome to scaling up h2o the podcast
where we scale up on our knowledge so we
don’t scale
up our systems i’m trace blackmore the
host of scaling up h2o
a nation lots of things going on
i want to make sure that you can come
here and you know
what is going on one of the items i want
to mention
is the water environment federation wef
i know a lot of you go to the weftec
conference i think that was virtual last
year well they have a host of
different virtual conferences all
starting
march 23rd with the collection
systems conference so all sorts of
different water treatment
areas that wef offers
so if you are looking for a
specific discipline in your water
treatment
field go to wef wef.org
and see if one of these virtual
conferences that they have coming up is
right
for you you can also go to our show
notes page and we’ll have some
information on there that you can
navigate directly from
because as always you are out there most
likely driving and i don’t want to be
the reason
where you can’t continue that drive so
don’t take notes just know that we’ve
got those notes for you
on our show notes page and those are
available on each
and every episode another thing i want
to mention is one of the things that i
look forward to
so much each and every year it’s the
association of water technologies
technical training seminars and folks
it’s going to be a little bit different
this year
where we are limited to the number of
people
that we are allowed to host
at that conference the event is going to
be
may 5th through 8th in annapolis
maryland we have very limited spots in
fact if you go to
awt.org you will see
that as soon as you register a spot will
disappear so if this is something that
you are interested in
please do not hesitate please
register for that as quickly as you can
to ensure that you have a
spot the awt technical training course
consists of two basic classes
and then we put two other little mini
classes
on the front end the little mini classes
are sales training
they meet the very first day and
ro ultra filtration training so if
you’re interested
in one of those you come in one day
before
the main classes start and you can take
those classes the other two classes are
the fundamentals and applications
training and the water treatment
training now the fundamentals and
applications class is primarily designed
for people that are relatively new
in the industry but if you have been in
the industry for a while
i don’t want you to look past this
course because this
course allows you to teach
the people that you are responsible for
even better now maybe you’re talking
about employees maybe you’re talking
about customers
maybe you’re talking about other end
users
the way that this course was designed
was to give
everybody a common context so we can
truly all appreciate
what it is we do as water treatment
professionals
now the other course is for people that
have been in the industry
a little bit longer that’s the water
treatment training
this is the class that everybody refers
to as drinking from
a fire hose folks this is not a course
that you would want to go to
and say it is one and done this is a
class that you continue to go to
and each and every time you attend you
are going to get
more and more out of it i’ve been
involved in the committee that puts
these trainings on
and i have personally sat through the
water treatment training
for over a decade and folks i can tell
you from my personal experience
i get something new out of that class
each and every time i get the privilege
of sitting in on it
so i hope you put those on your
calendars i hope you act quickly
because these spots are going very
quickly
and i’m sure that they are going to fill
up
once again you can go to our show notes
page and we’ll have information there or
you can go directly
to awt.org and you can register
i can’t wait to see you at the awt event
because i will be there as well
nation the whole reason we go to events
like the ones i just mentioned is
because
we are trying to get better in our
chosen field
and one person who’s trying to help us
get better each and every week is james
mcdonald
here is another installment of james’s
[Music]
challenge
hello scaling up nation the next james’s
challenge as we grow
as an industrial water treatment
professional drop by drop
is
review all your accounts to ensure
you’ve lived up to all your obligations
if not develop a plan it can be easy to
promise the customer you will do
something
but when the world catches up to you as
you walk out their door
that commitment gets delayed or
forgotten if the customer remembers and
you don’t deliver
you lose credibility so make time this
week
every week every day or even every month
to make sure your obligations are kept
be sure to share your experiences on
linkedin by tagging it with hashtag jc21
and hashtag scalinguph2o this is james
mcdonald and i look forward to seeing
what you share
james thanks so much we’re learning so
much we’re doing things that we probably
wouldn’t have done
if you did not nudge us to do them
so as always remember to share
what you’re doing on social media we
love to keep up with each other through
that platform
well nation you have heard me on several
episodes
talk about how me becoming the person
that i
am today has taken an entire village and
it is a work that is not yet complete
but i just want to thank all the people
that have poured
into me over my lifetime and there are
several
people that i have just asked to be a
mentor to myself there’s other people
that have asked me
to be a mentor to them so i want you
to think do you have a relationship like
that
and if you do great i now want to urge
you to pass that on
so you can be a mentor to somebody else
but for those of you that do not have a
relationship
like that i want you to realize that
you’re really
missing out on a golden opportunity and
i
know i’ve spoken on other shows before
how that very first
conversation where you’re asking that
person if they would mentor you
is a real big leap and sometimes
it’s so nerve-wracking many people
decide not to do it
i’m here to encourage you to get over
that initial fear
it just lasts for a second and folks
if they say yes the opportunities
are unlimited i’ve done that to several
people
in this industry and because
i got over that initial fear i did ask
them
and they did say yes
i am a lot better off than i think i
would have been
without their guidance over the past few
years
all this to say life is way too
difficult to do it alone we are
built as human beings to work with
other people and sometimes it’s
difficult to find those other people
and that’s why several years ago i
decided to join
a mastermind i’ve spoken on this show
about the rising tide mastermind and
that’s the mastermind group that i
formed that i put together to help
people in the water treatment community
come together share ideas and galvanize
each other so they can all become
better individuals while they’re helping
each other become
better individuals but before all of
that started
i was a member of a mastermind group and
i’m still a member of that same
mastermind group
and this is a group of individuals where
each and every week
we share the wins that we’ve had
since the last meeting and we celebrate
that just like they were our own
personal wins because we poured into
each other and we’ve asked each other
what they need help with we’ve helped
them with that
and then when they get a success story
based on
something that the group has helped them
with it’s just like
our very own win from there
we work issues and we hold each other
accountable
to make sure that we are growing and
we’re getting
to the next level well folks i’m really
excited about today because you are
going to hear from one of my mentors
from the facilitator of the mastermind
that i am a member of i’m talking about
aaron walker
and aaron walker runs a mastermind
called iron sharpens iron i’ve been a
member of that mastermind for some time
i can’t tell you enough wonderful things
about aaron who i call
big a and we’re going to talk about that
in the interview so
ladies and gentlemen of the scaling up
nation please welcome
aaron walker my lab partner today is
aaron walker from vue from the top who
everybody refers to as big a how are you
big a
hey trace i’m doing good buddy thank you
so much for having me on your show today
absolutely i’m really excited about what
we’re going to talk about today but
i’ve always wanted to ask you this where
did you get the nickname big a
you know i get asked that a lot and to
be honest with you
herb berry was my first boss
when i was 13 years old and i worked at
a pawn shop
in nashville tennessee and i’d been
there about
two weeks and uh i came walking out of
the back room
and i was carrying a guitar and somebody
had pawned it they were picking it up
and he looked at me and he said hey big
a give it to that man right there
and since that day it has stuck and so
everybody that’s friends and family
my grandkids even call me big a it just
kind of stuck trace so that’s where i
got the name
well i know you called my office once
and our office manager came into my
office and said
sheepishly there’s somebody named big a
on the line for you
so i enjoyed that and of course now we
know the story now you mentioned
pawn shops and we’re we’re going to be
all over the map today i think
i like it that way let’s just go down
different trails and see where it goes
all right we will see where it goes well
let’s start with that you
were very successful in that industry
do you mind telling us a little bit
about that story
no i’d be happy to uh i was raised in
nashville tennessee i’ve been here 60
years now i’m one of the few
regionals here in nashville everybody
else is moving here this is a
destination city but if you go way back
you know my dad was a general contractor
and we were pretty poor
just to be honest with you and one
summer he woke me up
early in the morning he said hey boy get
out of the bed i said what are we doing
he said you want to make some money
today and i said yeah i’m in if i can
make some money i’m
in he said there’s a beauty shop that
we’re going to
transform into a pawn shop and i said i
don’t even know what a pawn shop is and
he said well it doesn’t matter i just
need you to help me so
we went down we started uh remodeling
the beauty shop
turned it into a pawn shop and i started
thinking about this is not far from my
house and
so i met the new owner you know he was a
young guy he was 23 years old and
i went up to him at the completion of
the job and i said uh mr berry
my name is aaron walker and uh i’d love
to work here
and he said how old are you and i said
i’m 13. he said what would you do
i said i’ll do whatever you want i’ll
clean up wipe these showcases down you
name it i’ll do it
and he said you’re hired and i said
trace it was the shortest interview in
history
and he hired me to work there so i
worked with the school
just down the street uh from there and i
would go over there every day and i’d
work an hour and a half or two hours and
i started out at a dollar seventy an
hour
i thought i was high cotton this is back
in 1974
and i loved it i just fell in love with
it
and i worked there for a couple of years
and when i was 15 years old i decided
that’s what i wanted to do for a living
and so i went to summer school in night
school for about 18 months
i had enough credits to graduate high
school at the beginning of my junior
year in high school and
so i worked every day my junior year and
my senior year and
i turned 18 and i went to the owner and
i said hey will i ever own part of this
place and he started
laughing and he said no and i said well
i gotta leave
he said what are you gonna do i said i’m
gonna open my own pawn shop
and he said how are you gonna do that
you don’t have any money i said well
i’ve enlisted a couple of guys that do
have a lot of money
and we’re going to open a pawn shop
that’s exactly what we did so i was 18
years old
opened my own pawn shop i gave up
two-thirds of the business
in order to go in partners with them two
weeks out of high school
my wife and i of 40 years now we got
married
and i said robin we can’t screw this up
i said we may never get this chance
again
and so we just put our heads down and we
worked hard and uh
you know it’s a long story after that
but when i was 27
i was able to sell out to a fortune 500
and
you know i hate to say it like this
because it sounds terrible i was able to
retire
and i thought man this is the american
dream and
trey says a long story after that i went
back to work about 18 months later
bought the pawn shop i started with when
i was a kid
and we grew it to about four times the
size because we had the resources to do
it then
and it’s been a fun journey yeah but i
spent 27 years uh
overall in that business now i’m sure
being in nashville
you’ve got some stories about some
famous people that came into your store
yeah you know we did we had some pretty
cool uh
pretty cool people that come in i think
one
fun story to tell is that johnny cash
was a regular customer of ours he bought
a lot of diamonds and gold and
i got to know him you know pretty well
like we weren’t running around buddies
or anything but
we knew each other and he bought quite a
bit from us but
you know he had some problem family
members that used to come in
and pawn his guitars and stuff like that
and then i’d call him up and i’d say hey
your guitars are back down
here and he come get them and we went
through that song and dance for years
and so
you know roy orbison’s family they
shopped with us a lot and
we had some pretty cool people i got to
meet george jones through that
and friend of mine was in his band and i
got to interact with him a bit and go
out to his house and spend some time and
steve wynwood was my business
partner’s brother-in-law so i got to
know steve pretty good steve
lives here in nashville and he also
lives in england
for those that don’t know who that is
traffic was his band
a very very popular band he’s still
pretty popular today
back in the high life i think is one of
his hits that
people will probably recognize and uh
there were many other country music
stars you know
the oak ridge boys one of them lives
down the street here from me
now and i get to see him around and so
it’s just a lot of the country music
people here locally was pretty cool
being in that industry
well you said earlier you retired at 27
and i know very well you did not retire
so
what was life after the pawn shop well
here’s what happened
is that i thought man this is going to
be amazing you know like
i i’m like i’m done well trace you can’t
watch but so many episodes of andy
griffith you know
you can’t play but so much golf you
can’t fish
but so much because you do it every day
it’s like
you know it’s not fun anymore and people
are like listening to this going dude
give me a chance i would love to do that
and it’s true it’s fun for a little
while but all my buddies were working
and
i was playing with golf you know with
guys 60 years old they were beating me
and that was embarrassing and i’m like
i don’t feel productive like there’s no
meaning
there’s no purpose and i gained 50
pounds
and i was getting in the bed in the
middle of the day and robin saw that as
a real bad thing and she woke me up one
day and she said
this is not what i signed up for and i’m
like well what do you want me to do and
she said go get a job
start another company i don’t care what
you do but you got to get out of the bed
you got to lose some weight
and you got to start feeling productive
again so i went back
to the pawn shop and i told herb i said
why don’t i work here a day a week and
he said big hey have you already spent
all that money no i haven’t split the
money but i’m bored out of my mind
so i started working there giving him a
little time off and
you know i started investing some money
in the business and one thing led to
another and i said hey why don’t we go
in partners and let’s go for it
and so he agreed to he did and uh we
changed locations we bought a piece of
property across the street and built a
new
ten thousand foot facility there and uh
we really went for it and that’s when i
met dave ramsey dave ramsey uh
was just starting his radio show here in
nashville and
i went to a chamber of commerce
breakfast in madison and dave was
speaking to 25 people and
i invited him down to see our new pawn
shop and he fell in love with it and he
said hey why don’t you advertise on my
show
i said i’m not advertising with you i
never even heard of you and he said
i’ll give you a free week if you’ll just
try me
and i’m like well i can’t lose at that
and so this was in the early 90s
and so i started advertising on his show
and three days in i called him and i
said man
these people have drank the kool-aid i
don’t know what it is you’re selling
exactly but i’m interested in a
long-term relationship
he said well it’s an annual contract i
said annual and he said yeah i said i
can’t just sign up for a month and he
said no
well trace between me and you i’m going
to ask him one day
i think he would have taken a month
contract he was trying to press
me for a year but after that uh
i i sponsored his show for 21
consecutive years
and through that process we became real
good friends and then you know later
if you want to discuss it he invited me
to join his mastermind group that he was
starting and where we spent a lot of
time together
well big a that’s where you and i know
each other i’m a member of your
mastermind group iron sharpens iron
so i’ve started my own mastermind you’ve
been an extreme help
in all of that thank you for everything
that you do to
to help me with my group the rising tide
mastermind
i’m hoping that you know you’ve been in
a mastermind
for so many years it’s been a part of
how you process issues how
you become even more successful after
you were pretty darn successful at 27
so i was hoping you could tell the
scaling up nation a little bit about
one how you started and then what that
grew into
well i’ve got to be totally transparent
with your audience
trace and to be honest with you let me
tell you that story so it wasn’t
long after i met dave and we’d done some
business together
i was at the curb center here in
nashville watching a group called mercy
me
and uh dave was sitting a couple of
rolls ahead of me i didn’t even know he
was there
and during intermission he walked by me
and he goes hey big ac what are you
doing i said i just
hanging with robin listening to some
good music and he went to the concession
stand and he came back
and he said hey i want you to give me a
shout tomorrow i want to talk to you
about something that’s non-business
related and i said okay cool so i called
him the next day and
he said i’m starting a mastermind group
and i said you’re starting what
he said i’m starting a mastermind group
i said what in the world is that
and he started laughing and he said
we’ve been doing a bible study with
ron doyle and dan miller and some other
guys and he said we’re at the conclusion
of that but we still want to stay
together so we thought that each of us
would invite two or three people
and then we would have 10 or 12 people
and then we could meet in my office
and then we could do life together i
said well what does that look like
he said just come to my office wednesday
morning
seven o’clock and he said i’ll introduce
you to the guys that we’ve invited
we’ll see if it’s a good fit well trace
to be honest i didn’t want to go
and the reason i didn’t want to go is
because i know how hardcore dave is
i’m like he’s going to be all up in my
grill he’s going to be
challenging me and pushing me and making
me do things i don’t want to do
and then i got to be vulnerable and
transparent and i don’t think i want to
do that
and the reason is because i want
everybody that’s out there to think big
a’s got it going on like i’ve got it
figured out because my pride my ego
wouldn’t allow me to say that i didn’t
know everything
well the truth is what i found out is
nobody knows everything we’ve all got
superpowers but we’ve all got blind
spots also
and i didn’t want to reveal those blind
spots i didn’t want people to know that
there’s things that i didn’t know about
business and
i didn’t have it all figured out as a
husband because there was
challenges robin and i were having and
there was challenges with children you
know and i’m like i don’t want them to
know that stuff
and so i went and i was quiet for three
or four months i was in the
room and i was talking but i wasn’t
sharing anything and then one day
dan miller shared some challenges he was
having with one of his children
a couple weeks later dave was sharing
some challenges
he was having in his business and then
ken abraham was sharing some trials and
tribulations he was having in his
marriage
and i’m like hank they’re a bunch of
knuckleheads too they’re just like me
they got areas in their life that they
don’t have it all together and so i felt
the freedom
to say you know robin and i have shared
some experiences that have not really
been positive and i’m not really sure
how to deal with this
other people like ron doyle been married
a lot longer than me and he said well
big a
try this and see if that works well
trace i tried it and it worked and i’m
like dang you don’t know what you don’t
know
a couple of weeks later someone would
share something about business and i’d
be like
you know i’ve got a little cash flow
problem right now myself i’ve got these
retail
outlets and somebody’d say you know gene
riley would say he’s a cpa he’d say hey
why don’t you do this this and this and
i would do that and i’d come back i’d be
laughing i said
gene that worked and he’s like good good
i’m glad it worked
so then i said you know what i need to
be
vulnerable in here i need to just go hey
i want to get better
and so i let that veil down i let the
facade
down and i’m like this is who i am the
good the bad and the ugly
and these are areas that i can add value
to you
because i’ve got experience here but
these are places i need your help
and once everybody gets to a level
playing field once you
let that facade down and you go hey i’m
just like you but i need help in this
area man my business took off
my relationship took off spirituality
grew exponentially and i wasn’t a big
reader and i know trace you probably
find that hard to believe because i’m
always recommending books
but in the group we would read books
every month and i told dave one day i
said i don’t like to read he said i
don’t care if you like to read or not
suck it up buttercup we’re gonna read
and so
now i’m an avid reader i read i’ve read
thousands of books
as a result of being in there and it’s
just all this challenging
it’s the resources it’s the camaraderie
it’s the accountability
has absolutely changed the dynamics of
my business
and my personal life big a at some point
in your life you had a very
large experience that really changed you
can you tell us a little bit about that
yeah thank you for asking trace i
appreciate that uh it’s something that’s
uncomfortable to talk about but we all
have things in our life that are
uncomfortable to talk about so i will
share this with you
things were going really good in my life
uh we had the big house
the vacation home you know we had money
and
able to take vacations and i don’t say
that boastfully i say that
very humbly you know but it was the
truth
and one day i was blindsided i was
headed to the office i had just left our
church we had met there every wednesday
morning for years and years with
a group of men and i had left there and
i was on the way to the office
and uh there was a pedestrian crossing
the street to catch a bus and he didn’t
look my way and unfortunately i ran
i ran over this gentleman and he
survived three days in the vanderbilt
trauma unit and they called me on
saturday and said hey
he didn’t make it well tracy i can’t
even begin to tell you
what all transpired in my life after
that but
it was very stressful i sold the
business i was 40 years old and i said
hey i’ve been chasing money my whole
life i’m gonna take a break and i did i
took five years off i didn’t do anything
for a five year period
and uh got my legs back under me god
gave me the grace in order to deal with
that and robin woke me up from a nap
again
tracy says you’re getting fat and lazy
again it’s time to go back to robin has
really kept me on track
so i went in the construction business
and uh
we were pretty successful in the
construction business we built high-end
residents in small commercial
for a number of years and then finally
trace
i’m getting to answer your question here
finally i just said i’m done
like i’m done i’m 50 years old i’m going
to retire and i’m going to be done and i
did i retired and
i went to the mastermind group and
announced to them
you know that i had finally made the
decision to retire and
dan miller leaned over and he looked at
me and he said what are you going to do
now
and i said i’m going to go down to the
caribbean and i’m going to buy a little
place on st
john and i’m gonna rock myself into an
oblivion
and i started laughing well nobody in
the room laughed
nobody thought it was funny and dan
looked at me and he got this little
stubby index finger and he pointed it at
me and he said that’s the most selfish
thing i’ve ever heard you say
i said what are you talking about man
i’ve been working since i was eight
years old
13 years old i got a job i worked every
day since then i’m 50 now can i not
relax he said yeah you can relax a
little bit
but you’re way too young to stop
dave ramsey said hey won’t you come do
entre leadership
mastery he said it’ll be a gift from me
to you
just to see if you like it i thought
dang that’s a ten thousand dollar
present
i think i’ll take you up on it so i went
trace
i had a blast 150 people there and i got
to interact with people
i met a guy named brett barnhart and
matt miller and
they wanted me to coach them and i went
to dave and i said dave i met your event
but these two guys want me to coach them
he said well coach them i said that
they’re your customers and he said i
don’t care coach them
so i went home and talked to robin about
it and she said uh
yeah let’s give it a try so i started
coaching those guys
and loved it as a matter of fact i’ve
coached brett barnhart every tuesday for
seven years now
and it’s just been amazing matt miller
was my client for years and years and
years they’re both still in the
mastermind
and we have a great experience but then
somebody suggested that i do a podcast
interview and they said get on john lee
dumas show and
do a podcast interview so i did and it
blew up
i mean like overnight i had 15
one-on-one clients
and people all over the world were
calling saying hey i want you to coach
me
i kind of told my story well that was
exhausting i thought dang i can’t do
this man this is like
this is like work and i said i can’t
can’t do that
why don’t i start a mastermind group and
do one-to-many you know and be a part of
the group
rather than just coaching i can be a
participant because i love
masterminding and so it wasn’t intended
i don’t want to say it’s accidental
because i don’t believe in coincidences
i believe that i was really supposed to
do it but it wasn’t planned initially
i kept doing podcast interviews and we
kept filling up groups and
here we are today you know we’ve got 20
groups by the end of 2021 we’ll have
40 mastermind groups uh we’ve got people
in nine different countries now
and i think that this is more enjoyable
to me today because of the success and
the transformation of the members
more so than the benefit for me and
don’t get me wrong this is a great
uh business for us but man seeing people
develop and grow and take their business
to the next level be better husbands and
better moms and better dads and better
in community
and the networking and it’s just a
frenzy
of activity to see people really
transform their lives
and to think you were going to rock away
in the caribbean i was i was going to go
down to st
john because i love it at saint john but
i’m like today it gets me out of the bed
when i think of people and think of
how much better they’re doing the
camaraderie that we have
it’s just really cool to be able to see
other people grow
now you explained your experience within
the mastermind but if somebody
isn’t familiar with what the what the
purpose behind the mastermind is how
would you explain that
you know i think we make it way too
complicated and there’s all kinds of
definitions you know where
one mind joins another mind forms a
third mind
the truth is is that it’s your own
personal
board of directors that’s the easiest
way that i could possibly explain it
it is unbiased trusted advisors
they don’t have anything to gain or lose
as a result
of what they tell you so why would they
not tell you the truth
and i would much rather look silly in
front of 10 or 12 people than i had to
go bust in my business or
my marriage dissolve or not be able to
own up to the fact that i don’t really
know how to do
cash projections and i don’t understand
how to build a pro forma in my business
and
i’d rather say that privately and get
people to help me and me be successful
than for me to crash and burn because i
wasn’t willing to confine in a few
people that didn’t have anything to gain
or lose as a result of walking with me
and so the best way that you can
describe it is is
you’ve got people you meet with every
week they’re able to see your weaknesses
the achilles heel your blind spot your
super powers
and they can say hey you’re strong here
keep doing that
but you got to stop talking to your wife
this way or you’ve got to start
interacting with your children better
or you’ve got to spend more time at the
office concentrating on these things and
narrow your focus because you’re an inch
deep and a mile wide
and the real money is made when you’re
an inch wide and a mile deep
and so here’s how i can help hold you
accountable
because if you tell me this is important
next week i’m going to ask did you do
that last week and if you say no then
i’m going to say you really lied to me
about your priority
and here’s the thing when you’ve got
accountability every week and you’ve got
people asking you
questions you’re going to stay on the
narrow and the people that stay on the
narrow are the people that are going to
make the money they’re going to become
very consistent they’re going to become
proficient
they’re not going to just operate out of
their zone of competence but they’re
going to operate in their zone of genius
and you’re going to help mold them and
make them because other people see you
differently than you see yourself
and when you really subject yourself to
their scrutiny and you open up and say
hey give it to me let me know
it’s going to make you better and so
simply put
it’s your own personal board of
directors
now you mentioned masterminds typically
meet once a week
ours does yours does a lot of people
think oh my gosh
i can’t afford to spend that time
one hour each week what do you say to
that yeah well
they just simply don’t understand
because they wouldn’t make that comment
if they understood
because when you’ve got eight or ten
people
giving you an idea the general consensus
of the multitude
historically pays off rather than
figuring it out on your own
wouldn’t you be better off to go with a
group of people
that have like-mindedness that have
similar core values that understand
where you’re trying to go that can give
you good advice because as i said
earlier you don’t know what you don’t
know
and they can take hours weeks months and
years off of a process
they can take you there a lot faster a
lot of people say well
that’s an expense that i’m not willing
to have and i just simply say
it’s an investment it’s not an expense
because the relationships the resources
the ideas the accountability
has exponentially gotten me there faster
than
if i were to try to figure it out on my
own
aaron i’m also a member of vistage i’ve
been a member of vistage for about 10
years
and i used to carpool with a gentleman
that was a very short-term member
and he was a short-term member because
he was always concerned
about what he could take from the group
and not what he could give the group
and i love what you tell us in our group
that you have to come with a full cup
can you can you explain what that means
yeah sure full cup is just an analogy of
we want to give out of our abundance and
so
you want to have a mindset of being a
giver and not a taker
and the reason that is so important is
is that people
figure you out pretty quick when you’re
just a taker
but when you’re a giver the natural
reciprocity is they want to give you
back
so if you’re always thinking about
others how can i
help them excel what can i do to make
this connection
what resource can i give them to make
them successful
we make so many connections today for
people that don’t even ask
for it that we can’t even get back to
all the people that they’re connecting
me with
and so you can see how that reciprocity
happens naturally but when you have that
taker mentality people stop sharing with
you
they don’t give to you and people that
have the mindset and it’s the short-term
mindset
i’ve got to get an roi if i’m going to
put in 500
i’ve got to get a thousand dollars back
i’ve got to be able to measure it
well that is also the wrong mindset
because
it’s a long-term play like i was in the
eagles group for 10 or 12 years we met
every single wednesday morning
the relationships the connections the
camaraderie
the accountability that those guys have
given me i could
never ever measure it
in a quantifiable fashion but what i do
know is i can pick up the phone right
now and i can call all those guys and i
can have connections all over the world
i can ask them for ideas and resources
and give me feedback and they’ll do it
because i poured into them see i gave
and i gave and i gave
and so when you make that many deposits
it’s not hard to get a credit every now
and then
and so i just want to encourage you to
use the carol dweck
mindset philosophy of a growth mindset
not a fixed mindset
and say what is it that i can do to add
value to others
and it’ll come back to you 100x
it truly is the catalyst to bring that
back to you like you said 100x
big a you’ve started businesses sold
businesses started new businesses
and you’re still working with vue from
the top and making that even bigger and
better
i’m curious how do you define success
you know it’s tough for anybody to
really put a definition on success for
me
it’s successful to me that i get to do
what i want to do each and every day and
i’ve had the good
fortune of being able to do that since i
was 18. i’ve not had a
boss you know in 42 years i’ve been able
to determine
you know today i think i’ll go do this
or do that i’m a creator developer
i’m not a maintainer manager that’s why
we’ve owned 14 businesses over the
course of 42 years
is because i love to create and innovate
and start things new view from the top
has been a little bit different because
the other businesses the success
was determined in uh in terms of
financial success you know we built
companies and we had tangible
possessions and things like that
it’s a little different for me now it’s
about legacy
it’s about breathing into others it’s
about helping
others transform what’s going on for
them so i would just say
simply for me today success is measured
in the terms of
others success rather than my own
big a if somebody just turned on the
episode
and and started listing right from this
point what would you
want them to get out of this interview
yeah i would just
want people to know that isolation is
the enemy to excellence
and if you really want to fulfill
an adventuresome life you really want to
go for it
we’re designed to be in community and i
think that the more people that you can
get around
the smaller groups and be vulnerable and
transparent and authentic
and uh just let them know your trials
the
the places that you fall short and that
you need help
and enlist other people to help prop you
up to take you to the next level
your life is going to be very gratified
and very fulfilling
and then think of a way that you can
pour back into others and so
not be just the mentee but the mentor i
think your life will have greater
meaning and purpose
now when we get together on a weekly
basis you have
the best southern sayings that i have
ever heard can you share a couple with
the scaling up nation
oh my goodness i don’t know what those
would be you know i get teased a lot
about my southern drawl i was in the
airport not long ago
and i was uh talking to a buddy of mine
walking down to the concourse
and this guy passed me and all of a
sudden i heard somebody go hey
big a and i turned around and looked and
i said yeah and he goes i knew that was
you he said i’ve heard all your podcasts
and your facebook lives and
i started laughing he said you can’t
hide behind that voice
and so i get teased a lot about my
southern drawl but
i used to hate it when i listened to my
first interview with john lee dumas i
laid on my office floor
and i said robin please tell me that’s
not me and she started laughing she goes
that’s you
i said oh my gosh who would ever listen
to me
and you don’t think about it until you
hear yourself on a recording you know
and
my dad used to say silly stuff all the
time
one of them is is that as useless as
tits on a
borehole and people laugh about that and
they say hey man
or it’s hey you don’t know your butt
from third base and just
just silly stuff i heard my dad say all
my life or that’s a big gentleman
like what does that mean like that’s a
big gentleman
our preacher at our church got to saying
it and he was up preaching in front of 7
000
people and he goes i’m telling you right
now that
that that uh tabernacle that was a big
gentleman
everybody knew it came from me you know
so i don’t know trace
you know it’s the way god made me it’s
who i am i like to say silly things
here’s the thing i like to have fun like
we don’t get but one pass through life
this is not
a trial run and if we’re not having fun
we need to change directions
you know people say i hate what i do
well stop doing it you know get another
job get something you enjoy doing
because we don’t get another opportunity
i mean this is it
this is our life and i just want people
to have fun and enjoy themselves
well i’ve definitely had fun throughout
this interview but i’m not quite done
with my questions i’ve got a few
lightning round questions
if you’re ready for them come on bring
them all right big a you now have the
ability to go back in time and talk to
your former self
on your first day as a business owner
what advice would you give yourself oh
man that’s easy
i would build relationships more
intentional
faster because your success
hinges on your ability to build great
relationships that are going to tell you
the truth so without a question
i’d be very intentional about building
relationships faster
now i’m always looking to expand my
reading list and you have been very
helpful
helping me do that on a regular basis
being a member of your mastermind but
i’m curious what are the last three
books that you’ve read
well i’m constantly reading books so i
don’t know about the last three
there’s a great book that jack canfield
wrote called the success principles
and it’s a pretty long read but he
really talks about how to get from where
you are now to where you want to be
and there’s numbers of success
principles in there
another great book that uh just read is
the seven habits of highly effective
people
by stephen covey that is another
really really good read uh one of my
favorite books
that uh that i think can really add a
lot of value
is chris voss’s book never split the
difference
and it really gives you some real
insights in
how you can negotiate through life in a
very positive manner
well there’s no doubt hollywood is going
to hear about the life of aaron walker
and they’re going to write a script
who plays big a oh man
who play the duke
i don’t know who would play who would
play big a in hollywood uh
golly i don’t know who do you think
would play me you know me pretty well
you know that’s uh no one’s ever turned
it back on me before
um i can see gene hackman playing you
maybe a younger gene hackman
maybe so maybe so i can see that i don’t
know i kind of like clint eastwood too
i don’t know well that’s a great answer
let’s go with yours i like that even
better
i think you would i think it would be
clint eastwood
all right my final question you now have
the ability to talk to
anybody throughout history who to be
with and why
anybody throughout history
you know i’m gonna go with a spiritual
answer here
it would be paul in the bible
because he went through some real trials
and tribulations and he was a real man
of god and
he had a thorn in his side the scripture
says and i’d always be curious to what
that is because i think we all
have a thorn in our side and i think
spending some time with him
really finding out how he persevered for
so long for what he believed
would be very inspirational and
motivational
yeah what the heck did he see on that
road to damascus i don’t know
i don’t know that’s what i would like to
know as those are the questions that’s
why i’d like to spend some time with him
well big a thank you for spending time
with
us great guest really appreciate it
hey thanks trace have a good buddy we’ll
see you
big a thanks again for coming on scaling
up h2o thanks for sharing
some of the information about why
masterminds are so successful
and letting people know why they need to
consider joining
a mastermind as i said at the top of the
show
life is way too difficult to do it alone
and when you have a group of individuals
that get together on a regular basis for
the sole
purpose of making each other better it
is amazing at what happens
when those people get together so aaron
thanks again you know a couple things
i want to mention is i’m always looking
for ways to become
a better leader one of my favorite
definitions of leadership
was given to me by captain david markey
of the united states navy he was the
submarine
commander of the uss santa fe and i
interviewed him
way back in january 2018 it was episode
29
and folks if you listen to me i was just
so excited
as i was interviewing him i got so much
from his book called
turn the ship around and i remember
his definition of leadership was a
leader
was somebody who produced other
leaders and just think about that that
takes
one of the biggest issues with
leadership out of the equation
and i think that’s pride that you look
at somebody who’s successful
and they say i got here all by myself
because
i did this well normally that’s not true
normally there’s a whole
bunch of people that had
to step up that had to do things that
had to do all the day-to-day items in
order to achieve
what we are now seeing think of the
space program
when we think about the astronauts that
first stepped on the moon
astronauts neil armstrong and buzz
aldrin they were the ones
that first stepped on the moon
landed the lunar landing module and then
walked around the moon and we saw them
from
really bad television back in the late
60s
of course those would be a lot better
pictures now but a lot of people think
that that was it they
they got out they walked on the moon no
think of the millions and millions
of work hours that had to go into
the designing the ideas before they
designed
all the testing all the training
everything that had to be done
that was all off the scenes and the
fact that those were the astronauts that
were
chosen to go up there there were also
backup astronauts
if something were to happen and they
drilled so many
other scenarios other than the perfect
scenario to make sure
things would go according to plan and if
they didn’t
they knew how to get out of that
situation
to bring the astronauts back home so it
wasn’t
just about one person it was about
the mission it was about accomplishing
what
we sat out to do which was when jfk
said that we choose to go to the moon
and bring a man
safely back by the end of that decade
that was accomplished and it wasn’t just
by a few individuals
so i say all this because as a leader i
know
pride can get in our way and when we’re
able to give away credit to others
because there are so
many other people involved that deserve
credit that’s one way to help leaders
sort of get out of their own way and get
that pride so it doesn’t hinder the
whole operation
but then the other thing i want to point
out is the fact
that if you’re doing everything as a
leader
what happens when you’re not there or
how are decisions
made when you are not there if you
can instill upon the values that you
make decisions
and then allow people to operate within
those parameters
well now think of what you can
accomplish you can actually
scale if you’re all by yourself you can
only work on
limited items but if you have a team of
people
that are empowered through your
leadership
just imagine the things that you
can accomplish so that’s why i love the
fact when we talk about
leadership and i think about captain
marquez definition
leaders make other leaders and that’s
his definition
you know another leader that i think of
and i don’t know if you’ve seen it it’s
one of my favorite series it’s called
band of brothers it was
on hbo i think it came out in the
2000s it is about
the airborne division 101st airborne
division ez
company and one of the figures was their
commanding officer
and his name was major dick winners
one of the reasons i love that band of
brothers
story is because one it’s a true story
it
shows how these people were brought
together for a
mission and they worked together through
some incredible circumstances
and they played a huge role in
winning world war ii so
all of that to say i think major dick
winters is one of
the best leaders that i’ve read about
i’ve never had the opportunity to meet
him
and he passed away a couple of years ago
but he wrote his memoirs
and i’m mentioning this because i know a
lot of you
listen to audible audible is a service
that you can get reading back if you’re
too busy driving from account to account
well folks when you’re not listening to
this podcast you could be listening to a
book
on audible and if you don’t have audible
i can get you a free book and a free
month
by going to scalinguph2o.com
forward slash audible and i also want to
mention
that if you are a member of audible
right now dick winter’s book is
free as a download to your audible
library so by all means take advantage
of that free book
and read one of the memoirs from
somebody that i
consider and i think you will too a
tremendous
leader nation i appreciate you
always listening to scaling up h2o and
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scaling up h2o have a great week folks
scale up nation have you ever wondered
if you are so
stuck in your ways you cannot learn
a new way to do something well i
recently had a conversation with rising
tide
mastermind member chuck hamrick and
here’s what he had to say
well because i’m an old timer and i’ve
been doing the water treatment for 37
years you know i’ve got my own ways of
doing things
but since i’ve learned a little more uh
things that are a little more techy now
and and and being able to
uh put my thoughts on the paper and to
be able to
clarify my thought of speech to my
employees
one of the best examples would be with
my son chase
who will be taking over the business
probably another five or six years
it’s taught him what he needs to do to
actually run a more effective and more
uh better run company so it’s it’s
helped tremendous
and it’s helped because we are a
family-owned business
we got several members of our families
in the business
it’s actually brought more uh closeness
and understanding how we should work
together as a team
well nation chuck is an awesome member
of the rising tide
mastermind and i have to tell you when
chuck speaks there’s always something
profound that
he says he has helped so many people
within the rising tide
mastermind it’s great to hear that he’s
received
so much benefit as well i want you to go
to scaling up h2o.com forward slash
mastermind so you can read more about
what our group is and to see if this is
the right group for you
if it is hit apply and we can schedule a
meeting where you can talk with me
and we can talk about exactly what this
group is
and we can figure out what you are
looking for and if those two
things are a match well you can be the
next member in the rising tide
mastermind again go to scalinguph2o.com
forward slash
mastermind