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Speech Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:00  

Hey, this is Aaron Howe who was the founders for system and if you really want to learn to level up your life, you should be listening to the time design podcast with my friend, Scott Ferguson.

Unknown Speaker  0:10  

Time to shine today varsity squad is Scott Ferguson and welcome to Episode 122 with my good friend Aaron Houghton from the founders first system, very, very, very unique system where it’s free. And it’s where entrepreneurs can share their experiences and other entrepreneurs within the groups. We’ll help you level up and kind of push through. Aaron’s going to remind us to be vulnerable, be tough enough to be vulnerable, and also to build your resilience up so I’m not going to share too much right now. I can’t wait to get you to the interview with my really good friend Aaron Houghton from the founders first system.

Unknown Speaker  1:01  

Hey, time to shine today varsity squad. This is Scott Ferguson. We did like 48 days to get my boy Aaron hoghton on. He is a phenomenal, phenomenal person that my his mindset, like, from what I’ve read it out from him is something that I need to implement into my life to take a step back to really analyze if you will lack of a better term like where I’m at in with his founders first system. You’re going to be treated to a plethora Yes, I use that favorite word, everyone rips on me about the plethora of knowledge nuggets that’s going to help you level up your life. It says here in his bio, he’s 11th time founder and entrepreneur advocate, a husband and probably most important a dad. So without further ado, I’m going to invite Aaron on here for an interview. Again, I’ve been stoked to have this it’s been almost two months We’re in days 7000 quarantine here. But if you could, please, I’m gonna have you introduce yourself the time to shine today squad. The first, what is your favorite color and why? My favorite color is blue because I think that’s what my favorite color is supposed to be as a man and I’m legally colorblind. So I couldn’t tell you whether it’s good looking or not. Maybe I should have asked that. I start putting that in my discovery. Are you colorblind? There’s a reason to my madness on that with with regards to the color of the, the your little audiogram if you will, if you look at my podcast, the little line is always a person’s favorite color. That’s my secret person. That’s the first time I’ve said that in over 140 interviews.

Unknown Speaker  2:42  

So races today. I love it. All right.

Unknown Speaker  2:45  

So let’s get to the origins of air. Let’s take a step back before you started the founders first system, and then kind of get the origins and move forward, brother. Yeah, Scott, thanks for having me. This is really exciting. My background is you know, I’m a small town Don’t kid. I was in middle school in high school in western North Carolina, near Asheville, in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina, and grew up in a town there was about 2000 people and I think its greatest notoriety. I remember the sign when we drove him out of town said it was a bird sanctuary, which I’m still not exactly sure what that means there was not a cage around my hometown. But, you know, it’s one of these little small towns, I think, struggling for significance in the world, and that’s who I am. And that’s who I was coming out as a kid from this small town, I got a great opportunity to go to UNC Chapel Hill and study computer science. And I took this hobby of being kind of a nerdy kid and trying to build things, you know, playing around with like, taking one horse apart and taking physical objects apart to then doing that with software and with computers and trying to take them apart and put it back together. Just really being a tinkerer. Like I think so many people are in other categories. And I took that as that was like my hobby as a high school student. You know, most kids are into probably more exciting things than that, but that’s What I like to do, and I eventually figured out how to turn it into a business, honestly, because mowing lawns in the hot Southern summer heat was brutal, and I have allergies, and I couldn’t breathe, I was a terrible way to make money. And I was like, I could actually make, you know, $35 an hour putting computers together for people and building websites. Wow. So what transitioned that then kind of as an aha moment into founders first, to help people really kind of level up their journey. Yeah, you know, that became the beginning of this 20 year journey of me as a software entrepreneur, so building software to solve people’s problems, to solve my own problems. My first website ever built actually was from my high school basketball coach who owned a bed and breakfast. And he had some challenges around getting tourists that lived mostly in Florida to come back up to North Carolina for the least season in the fall when the leaves change color and he wanted to stay top of mind in front of them. And so I just built this website to solve this problem. I built software to solve other people’s problems in different areas and you know, that turned into a business and so I became a Software guy in a software company I built 11 software companies over 20 years, my most successful one to 50 million in revenue 350 employees offices all around the world. And through that process, just so much personal struggle and pain as my businesses became more successful, I found my health and my happiness was on the exact opposite trajectory, it was down and towards the ground. And over time, I realized that what I really needed wasn’t as much the tactical skills on how to build a business and launch a business and how to run a marketing campaign. Like I could go find those things. those resources existed, you had to ask people questions, but to get those answers, but what I didn’t have was like how to take care of myself in the midst of extreme pressure, extreme dynamism, extreme stress of running a company and that’s where I really struggled. And so I created founders for system to help people with that problem, which I think it’s hard to find the answer to. So if which, by the way, you went to UNC Chapel Hill, like my most hated rival, kind of Well, yeah, I’m a bad boy from Detroit. You know, for the party fan, but yeah, Detroit Pistons played this guy, Michael Jordan, you know, Alliance, you know. And so when you when you’re talking about, so you’re taking kind of your personal experience and then helping people maybe level up so they’re not having or they’re going to have to clear the hurdle, that you’re going to help them out with that. Is that correct, then? Yeah, you got it. Okay, perfect. So when you bring somebody in through the kind of the discovery process, what is your first if you don’t mind kind of secret sauce to help them find their blind spot?

Unknown Speaker  6:38  

Yeah, so the fetters for system is first and foremost, a community of founders helping each other. So I think the first thing is really just awareness of what it costs to try and be successful. And that’s, that’s something that I share with people a lot. And I think maybe doesn’t resonate always the first time. So ask people to think about that. Like, what does it cost to try and be successful and there’s there’s two important parts of that one is cost, isn’t it? People are like, Oh, hang on, it costs money just to pay money for basic? Well, there is money. Yes. money in it. Oh, but what about time? What about impact on relationships? What about impact on your health? Right? There’s the model that a lot of people come fall accidentally into in life where you spend the first 80% of your life selling your health and your time in order to try and make money and then you spend the last 20% of your time, your life trying to buy back your health, which maybe doesn’t work. And then you run out of time, right, we’re playing more along into that bad path, far lower grades at the end. Yeah. And then the second part is to try and be successful, which is in the in the high growth startup world that I’ve lived in, where we’re trying to build scalable products and scale them to thousands and millions of users. There’s so much risk and only about 5% of those companies actually have big exits in the end. So if it’s financial outcome or influence or success or changing the world that you want, there’s a 5% success rate. So you’re paying the cost definitely for a 5% chance at winning. It’s kind of like a bad day in a casino sometimes. So You actually kind of help them begin like, like Stephen Covey might say, like, begin with the end in mind kind of so they have that exit strategy, but during their journey they’re taking I love your like little sabbatical video by the way people you got to go to founders first since and calm and watch this two minute video about you know he talks about the emotion energy and health and physical body and how you need to consistently recharge those. So your mind is able to level up, you know, it’s easy way for me to say kind of level up but you know with beginning with the end in mind is that first discovery process a question that you might ask them of where do you see your company when you exit? Are you really getting started deep in the roots where they’re at? Yeah, it’s a little bit of both. So I want people to track both where they want to go as a business. And I think that’s the discipline that’s taught in most schools, most accelerators if you just go to the internet and Google how to start a business, you know, like those are the pieces of like, set your goals that you’re playing break it into pieces, you know, have good discipline, have good grit, never give up, stay persistent all those pieces around it. And I think all of those are still accurate I add to that track and quantify our own personal goals alongside that. So what are the things that I found? I’m over 1000 days in now I started this in 2017, tracking every single day, my happiness level on a one to 10 scale. And then I also track other activities that I participate in, like, did I get a good hour with my family uninterrupted without, you know, the digital device bothering us? Did I, you know, get to go out and spend time in public that I get to maybe have a hike or go out into nature. And so I track all these things, and they’ve been incredible for me. And so that’s what this what founders first system has kind of taken these discoveries I’ve had of track, not just the business metrics, but also the personal metrics health and happiness, and make sure that those are moving in the right direction too. We know they can ebb and flow. We have a bad day at work as an entrepreneur. Sometimes we have a great morning and a terrible afternoon and then a great evening, right it can be really dynamic. Yeah, tracking if we’re actually on the right path with happiness and health is incredible because we need to know how much we’re spending in those categories. I ask people in our workshops, if I promised you, you would make $5 million from your business, would you trade me right now? Five years off of your life? What about $10? million? What about 10 years off of the in your life? Right? And people laugh? And it’s kind of a tricky question. But I think that’s the reality of it. If you trade your health, you’re just not going to get as much enjoyment out of what you’ve created on the other side. And so that’s the trade off, though. So you’re a techie guys or a software used to track this stuff. For people you know, from their health and energy, not their emotion. like myself. I’m a gratitude journal guy every single morning. First thing I do, you know, I do it I read a I’m a Godfrey man, but you know, God loving man. You know, I read a book of Proverbs because there’s 31 books in Proverbs. And basically it’s a chapter a day, right? So I do that. What I’m grateful for, right? Is there a software program that you know, fire First users as you bring clients aboard? Yeah, you know, I’m a software guy. So of course, we got a lot of that, right helps track this. Yeah. So we’ve got a program for you know, I mentioned the free community that we have the fenders, first community, we’ve got a program called peak ability. So folks that come into the community, enjoy the conversation, get some value out of it, can choose to upgrade into this, where we give them a huge digital training program that I’ve built over the last five years. And as part of that we include software, which is a mobile app on iOS and Android where you can track these things every single day. Oh, beautiful.

Unknown Speaker  11:31  

Yeah, that just looked at the show notes on people for sure. So if I’m out at a networking event with Sharon, South Florida, we’re kind of starting allowed to do you know, cross and flush meeting people what kind of, if I’m talking to someone when I want and I’m using the adage of one mouth and two ears for a reason. You know, I’m listening in what kind of key words am I listening for that would make them a good referral connection, Introduction to founders first. The thing I like to say is that you know, It’s like the framework is perfect for anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur or who is an entrepreneur because it helps you build resilience so that you don’t get yourself into a personal crisis. Like where this goes when it doesn’t go. Well. The statistics for folks like us as entrepreneurs are really, really, really bad. We’ve got to x the rate of depression, we have to x the rate of suicide of the general population, we have three x the rate of ADHD, or sorry about any type of substance abuse, six x the rate of ADHD and 11 X, the rate of bipolar disorder 1111 times 9% more, it’s absolutely crazy time. So yeah, it’s just wild what this entrepreneurial experience brings out in us, right, so yeah, I would, I would say that, you know, it’s, you know, trying to avoid a crisis, right. So anybody who wants to, you know, chase a huge goal in their life, whether that’s even entrepreneurial or not, where they know that it’s going to take an incredible amount of work and incredible amount of effort and they may have to put themselves second, a lot of times for that. Goal this system is to help them balance out those two pieces so that they can be successful both personally and professionally. Love it. I can’t wait to really dig into this within your community. So let’s get our DeLorean with Marty McFly. Let’s go back into maybe the 22 year old Aaron, what kind of knowledge nuggets are you dropping on him to maybe help him shorten his learning curve with the knowledge that you have now the wisdom you have now. Don’t assume that your your physical and mental resources are unlimited. That’s, that’s what I would tell my 22 year old self. I just assumed that I could, you know, treat myself as poorly as possible in order to optimize my business and put my business first and that it would eventually deliver business success. And my experience with this was that my lowest point in running companies and being an entrepreneur was two years after I sold my company, my most successful business we sold for 160 $9 million to a public company and I had enough money at that point to retire and my great grandkids probably retire at this point. And, and then I find myself at my lowest point in my entire life because all of these habits along the way of putting myself last caught up to me, the acquirer bought my company, they didn’t buy all the bad habits, I got to keep all of those and I get to keep them forever. And that that cost, it was just something that blindsided me jackin kind of shaved the years off your life, if you’re not really taking care of yourself. I mean, that’s where we get this temple, you got to take care of it. And when I was young, I was all about that. And then now you are then I’ve kind of made money as printing money for the real estate market in early 2000s. And I was finding Burger King rappers and when these rappers in my floorboard in my car, you know, because I was serving clients and I was like, but not serving myself. So I think the founders first really will help keep you on board with that. So when you bring somebody on air and when you’re kind of again, back into discovery processes here or even on down the road, is your helping companies level up and building the software for them. Is there any good question that you wish they would ask you, but never do? I think the number one question we need to be asking each other as entrepreneurs is what’s our greatest challenge right now. And that’s what we need to be sharing with other people. I think there’s just too much there’s, you know, take a lot of ego to become an entrepreneur, right? You’ve got to have confidence that you can beat these incredible odds. Right? And with that can come this and I think the general narrative around entrepreneurship to support this which is that we should always talk about what’s going great and you know, how, you know how are things man how’s the business Oh, everything’s great you know, gosh, we’re just killing it right revenues up, got a new client the other day, what’s the reality right behind that right well lost a big client the other day to 10 times as big as that we meant to get revenue is up but you know, margins are down and we’re losing money on every order because we’ve got a supply chain problem right or whatever is right behind the scenes or personally, I’m struggling You know, I’m taking prescription meds to follow sleep at night. And I find myself so anxious during the day that I can’t motivate my team anymore like I used to be able to. So those are the things that come up in real life. And I think just opening the door to these problems with each other and just being wide open. It’s a practice that I’ve used the last three, four years of my life of just you know what I’m going to tell people what my biggest struggle, my biggest challenges right now and just let them know, because people can’t help you if they don’t know what your biggest challenge and your biggest struggle areas. And if you gloss it over with all this exciting kind of fake, everything’s great stuff, then no one knows how to help you.

Unknown Speaker  16:31  

Right? A lot of people take that imposter syndrome or fake it till you make it kind of thing when really, you’re not really doing yourself any good service. I mean, I again, I was a, you know, really a product of that. And it’s funny that you said what you just said, You know, I just you know, I’m into the stoics and I’m digging into Dr. genies right now. And he was like, you know, not only are you battling with another person that you’re trying to beat on the corporate ladder, or entrepreneur, if you’re battling like, you know, I’ve been a real estate agent for 22 years. You know, you’re bound another agent, there’s actually cells in your body that are battling each other to take over, you know what you just said right there. It’s like, there is a battle no matter what even the person will, like you said, you know about taking prescription meds to go to sick, that’s a battle within your body, that you’ve got to be cognitively above you know, so I’m glad that you said that. I really, really, really appreciate it. So you’ve you’ve accomplished a ton, um, you said you sold company for 100, almost 170 mil which, you know, fantastic. And you you’ve started, you know, 11 different companies, 12 different companies, what is the big the big thing that Aaron really wants to accomplish? And I want to fundamentally change the experience for a million entrepreneurs and founders across the world to make that story a little bit easier for them. And also because humanity relies on entrepreneurs to change the world. And if they burn out on their first company or their second company, or they lose their ability to be creative, or if they unfortunately lose years off their lives, because of the struggle, then their journey is so much less enjoyable. And the world suffers because of that, and all humanity. That is huge man, you hear that squad wants to help a million entrepreneurs level up because, you know, he talked earlier about the burnout, like maybe 5% of businesses that really start actually see it through to the end. And if you’ve joined with somebody like founders first, I’m jumping in the community today. So it’s, it’s free, that’s the best price of all. So see where that will take us. Right. So Aaron, let’s talk about your dash real quick. The time to shine today. The dash to me is really kind of the most important thing and that’s that little line in between your life date and death date. How that little dash How do you want your dash remembered? I understand that you wanted 100,000 or 100 sorry, a million entrepreneurs to really level up. But is there anything else that you want included in that legacy that dash? Yeah, I want to be remembered as somebody who was tough enough to be vulnerable. Who was who had that? That beginner’s mindset and this is something that I constantly struggle with. So that’s why I go to it not because I’m great at it, but because it’s my struggle and my journey and how I want to finish my life and leave a legacy. So I want to be remembered as a person that had a great impact on so many entrepreneurs to make their journey easier. But I really want to be remembered as somebody who was able to share where I suffer first so that others can share where they need help. I love that it’s like basically, by doing that, but you said tough enough to be vulnerable. That means you’re still asking for help correct? Me and so like, you know, I just my last chapter I just wrote in the book is called Get your asking gear. And it was shared with me by Leah Woodford you might even know her through Casey hastin. But it’s in I kind of wrote that like I want to learn, you know, to be a little bit more vulnerable with myself as well. Instead of Thinking cuz I again, entrepreneurship you mentioned it egos involved. So a lot of times you don’t reach out, reach out for that which think thank you so much for saying that. So what do you feel then is your definition of a life well lived. Taking the best care I can have my mind and body so that I could help others. It’s that analogy of you know, when you’re on an airplane and put your oxygen mask on first before helping others, right. It’s always such a funny statement. When you listen to it. It’s like, really, that makes me a jerk. Right? I can tell right next to me first. Yeah, yeah, right. But when you actually dig into the equation behind that, right, you can help 100 people put their masks on if you put your mask on first, it’s still gonna have incredible impact. It’s so true. Aaron, like you say that. A lot of people look at it as selfish. But even if you look up the other definition of selfish it’s, you know, put yourself kind of first to be able to service and help authors. You know, that’s really it’s dug in. You have to know what good arguments right? Exactly. empowerment. So as we wind ourselves down just a little bit here, Aaron I got my what’s called leveling up lightning round. There’s five or six questions you and I could talk for 1520 minutes, but due to time constraints and my, you know, crazy producer over here, he’s like, nope, five seconds and they’re super easy. No explanation. Just fire away. You’re ready. Mm hmm. Awesome. Eric, what is the best leveling up advice you’ve ever received?

Unknown Speaker  21:25  

Man, I got this from a mentor a couple years ago. For someone who’s intense and competitive like me, he said, step away from the computer. Take a deep breath. Make a hot glass of chamomile tea. I love it. I love it. Kevin middle is my jam at night. By the way. I want to share one of your personal habits that contributes to your success. Morning Routine every day. 30 minutes for myself starting a column before I start my day. breathwork movement visualization gratitude journaling, like you said big time love it started calm before you start your day. Wow. So other than that, Let’s go to now what’s your reading now? Not what the flavor of the month is to read. What is that go to book like mine’s two of them. I like Andy Andrews, the travelers gift or Bob Berg. So go giver I love them because they’re kind of both terrible. Like, I love that. Those are my two that if you came to me and said Fergie, man, you know, I’m kind of crazy. I’m lost. I’m out there. I had those two treatments that listen, these will help you out. What is your book? Yeah, it’s no one’s ever heard of it’s called the nature fix by Florence Williams. And it’s the physical proven science and research behind like time and nature, reduces our stress level reduces our cortisol levels, reduces our blood pressure reduces pulse rate. It’s actually been proven by scientists and it’s the science behind why nature fixes our minds and our bodies. For us. It’s a truly incredible, beautiful, awesome. What is your most commonly used emoji? It’s actually, you know, although at 39 years old, I am technically a millennial. I’m not an emoji guy. All right, fair enough.

Unknown Speaker  23:00  

Maybe so that double high five, but that’s about it.

Unknown Speaker  23:03  

Yeah, it’s probably the thumbs up. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  23:05  

So if you could be one age for the rest of your life and you can’t say the AGR now, there’s gotta be another age like mine’s 28 to 30. Would it be? Yeah, my 20s were brutal because again, I was trading my health for success. So it’s making a lot of money and I was miserable in a lot of ways. So, probably 3333 is my lucky number. It’s on my basketball jersey when I play hoops. And I felt great. Yep, I was finally starting to turn that corner on good habits in life. Beautiful. What’s your favorite charity and organization you’d like to give your time and or money to? So I’ve been on the board the last year of a nonprofit called entrepreneurs organization. Its global has 16,000 entrepreneur founders in it. And it’s a nonprofit based out of Washington DC in the US and it’s absolutely incredible, changing the lives for entrepreneurs. Last question is kind of a toughy there. What’s the best decade of music 6070s 80s or 90s Man 99 separate runs guys just gonna say you gotta roll out of the big hair don’t care. Pearl Jam Soundgarden. Yeah, 90s was good time. Yeah, I’m product of the 80s. So it’s kind of 80s but I’ll tell you what I put on the I Heart Radio 70 station, you know in the background like when I’m jamming data brings back memories of my late mom. So it’s good stuff. Hey, how can we find your brother in the founder first community so I’d love to share my story with founders. I respond to every post in there because I created this community for people like me, it’s like my therapy. We’ve got hundreds and hundreds of founders in the group. So founders first community search for it in the App Store on your smartphone, or go to vendors vendors for system comm and click on the community link. Beautiful and I’m going to put all of that in the show notes. So Aaron, last thing, leave one last knowledge nuggets. You want to leave the time to shine today squad that they can use, internalize and take action. Entrepreneurs take care of each other so that we can create the incredible future That we know we all deserve. Wow, you guys, we just got basically a free masterclass by my friend Aaron today. He really emphasizes, don’t assume your physical and mental resource on limited take care every step of the way. You know, ask yourself what’s your greatest challenge, don’t just talk to people and tell them what’s going great, especially other fellow entrepreneurs because people have an innate ability to want to help, you know, join the founders first system, there’s entrepreneurs in there that will help Aaron just set and hold him to it. He responds to people’s, you know, posts that he has, you know, he, he builds teams, to help others level up, help solve their problems. He’s built 12 companies. He’s built this community of founders to help people I have just, you know, I got to show it if we’re on YouTube, this is just notes, just up the Yang man, you know, track and quantify your personal goals, and then we got to look out at the teachability as well into that. So Aaron, I really appreciate you coming on. You’ve been gracious with your time you level up your help you level up your wealth. And we appreciate you coming on brother. Thank you so, so much, Scott. Thanks so much for having me. This has been great. Thanks, brother. Hey, thanks so much for listening to this episode of time to shine today podcast. Proudly brought to you by Southern Nugent real estate real estate excellence, who can be reached at 561-249-7266 and online at www dot Sutter nugent.com if you’re a business owner or professional who would like to be interviewed on time to shine today, please visit time to shine today.com slash guest. If you liked this episode, please subscribe on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast. There’s a link in the shownotes to our website. Also there you will see a recommended resources. We hope that you will support our show by something Then, if you like what you’ve been listening to, it’d be great if you could just give us a five star rating until your friends have subscribed while you’re at it. I’m your host, Scott Ferguson. And until next time, let’s level up. It’s our time to shine.

 

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