In this episode, Dave is to welcome Shinjini Das. Shinjini is the founder of the Das Media Group, a boutique content marketing agency which builds digital marketing strategies and creates live in-person as well as digital content artifacts to deeply connect your brand with target audiences internationally.

Shinjini has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, C-suite, and is an INC Girls Education Global Hero. At just 24, she has built a person brand with a social media following of over 130,000, is a global millennial influencer, keynote speaker, and is also a contributor to The Better Business Book.

She’s known as the “go Getter girl” and shares a message of empowerment and empowering self which is exactly what she shares with you today.

Shinjini always saw a destiny for herself. She visualized and dreamed about the life she wanted to live. She believed in it so much and made the leap leaving her corporate job. She started building a personal brand by unleashing very positive and useful contact. She became popular very fast to where media agencies contacted her to represent her. As she says, it was not magic, she put in a lot of time and hours and made her vision come true.

At the 6 min mark, Shinjini talks about making the dream a reality, leave her job, and what it took to not only manifest her dream, but make it successful.

• “What you think about, you create.”
•  She had a very clear vision of what she wanted to build. It was not random.
•  It takes courage, confidence, action, and strategy.
•  She had to validate herself which meant setting goals and hitting them.

Specific actions she took:

• Compartmentalizing and sectionalizing things out with metrics for success in each area
• Having specific goals for outreach
  • Social followers
  • Engagement
  • Features in publications and writing
• Understanding how each offering she has fits in and where and then planning for it.
• Setting targets for revenue and growth

What are secrets that work or don’t work for growing, building, and monetizing an audience?

• Have self-respect. You cannot be respected unless you respect yourself first.
• Identify your goals
• Connect deeply with people and your audience
• Have variety in your content – it needs to be fun, engaging, and not stale
• Be authentic and be real

At the 18 min mark, Shinjini talks about empowerment and how important it is the life and success

Belief gives confidence, confidence empowers you, and empowerment grows you and changes your life.

Shinjini’s Recommendations for books and influencers to read and follow:

• Adam Grant – follow and read his work on behavior
• Daniel Goleman – read his work on emotional intelligence
• Her biggest takeaway is that any skill is learned and can be learned

Advice for people just starting out:

• Have a clear direction – take time to plan and know where you want to go
• Start high, the 30,000 foot view and then go down from there

How do you get your message out and get speaking gigs?

• Start speaking for free
• Get some experience
• The first few are most difficult and you will start to find you true area of expertise
• Get on the phone and make calls and ask – many won’t return your call, but some will and you will get your first engagements there
• Show your value and make it easy for them

Biggest lesson?

• Learning empathy and how it allows you to be vulnerable and connect had made such a difference in her success.
• This allows her to better connect What transformation have you had to go through to become who you are today?
• Shinjini was an introvert growing up and in order to attain her dream, she had to become an extrovert.
• She had to learn to be outgoing, happy, engaging, empathetic
• She had to also go through a major physical transformation from getting in shape to how to dress, make-up, carry herself.

Best Quote:  "It is game of resilience and a game of hustle and if you have both, you are golden..."

Misfit 3:

1. Love yourself and love those around you. Love is a very powerful emotion and speaks of happiness and personal power. It also leads to a healthy self-respect.
2. Make sure you have a framework and value proposition in place and that you fully understand it and plan for your success.
3. Empowerment: Believe in yourself and your value. Tap into your power.

Hello Misfit Nation! Welcome to another edition of "Lessons for Hannah!"

In November of 2016, we introduced a new format that we are putting alongside our regular episodes called “Lessons for Hannah.” Hannah is my daughter and one of the main inspirations for the Misfit Entrepreneur. I wanted to have a place where she could go and learn from her daddy and his Misfit friends throughout her life….even after I am gone. If you haven’t listened to the first episode of "Lessons for Hannah," I urge you to as it gives some more background and tells the amazing story of how Hannah came to be in our lives.

"Lessons for Hannah" are short, very useful, and sometimes comical lessons, that I have learned which I want to share with you and give to Hannah to help in your lives. Because I want Hannah to have these for her life, I’m going to speak as though I am talking directly to her. These episodes are a lot of fun and if you think there is a lesson that we should include in these episodes, please don’t hesitate to send it over to us at support@misfitentrepreneur.com. We’d love to share it.

This Week’s Lesson for Hannah Hannah

I want to talk to you about the importance of family. As you grow up, you will find that there are more things in life that take your time and commitments you are responsible for. Your work, charity, passions, etcetera. And please be the absolute best you can in all of these areas, but never lose sight of what is really important because in the end, if all of that is stripped away from you – your family will always be there for you. We will always be there to back you up, help you, and love you.

Your family is YOU. We succeed and fail together. We go through the good and hard times together.

No family is perfect, they never will be, but your family is the rock you can always count on to anchor you and give you strength. Never forget that. And never forget that those you interact with have families as well. Celebrate that with them and where you can, encourage them to connect and have the best relationships with their family that they can. Your mother and I, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and close relatives will do everything we can to make time for us to come together and celebrate our values and unique family traditions.

And someday, god-willing, you will start your own family and add to ours. And you will have the opportunity to pass along this important lesson to your children and help them to understand how important family is to their life and success. I’ll end with a quote I saw that I think really resonates with this less. “Think of your family today and every day thereafter. Don’t let the busy world of today keep you from showing how much you love and appreciate your family.”

I love you, Daddy.

Best Quote: “Your Family is YOU. We succeed and fail together. We go through the good times and bad together."

Misfit 3:

1. If everything is taken from you, you still have your family.
2. Your family is the rock you can always count on to anchor you and give you strength.
3. No matter how busy life gets – never lose site of the importance and love of your family.

In this episode, Dave is excited to welcome Garret Gunderson. Garrett is Chief Wealth Architect at Wealth Factory and author of the NY Times best-seller, Killing Sacred Cows. Wealth Factory helps entrepreneurs optimize cash flow, streamline their finances and keep more of their hard-earned money so they can make more powerful investments in their best wealth creator: their business. Garrett has appeared multiple times on ABC News Now, Your World with Neil Cavuto on Fox, CNBC’s Squawk on the Street and more — and his first firm made the Inc 500.

Garrett has dedicated his career to making personal finance for entrepreneurs simple, immediately actionable and enjoyable.

Garrett teaches ways to pay off loans much faster and how to safely and legally save more in taxes. Specifically, Garrett is a master at showing you how to recover cash, build sustainable wealth, and take true control over your finances – oh, and he’s not like any financial person you’ve ever met. That is why Dave wanted him on the show. He’s a true entrepreneur, a misfit, who’s chosen to show other entrepreneurs the unique methods to optimize their wealth…not some broker hawking investments for a commission. In fact, make sure you listen through to the end as Garrett is giving you a special gift to help you in your journey.

www.WealthFactory.com

Get a copy of Garrett’s latest book, “What Would the Rockefellers’ Do” FREE. Just text 801-396-7211 and put WWRD in the subject line.

Garret is an entrepreneur who started out by creating a service business to clean trucks at coal mines and detail cars. He won $5000 for being the Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Unlike most teenagers, he wanted to invest his money, but his mom didn’t let him. He waited until 18 and put his money in the market and lost. He then started to learn more about finance and investing, and economics. He got an internship at a brokerage and started to bring in accounts, but it was in the late 90’s market boom.

As he says, “He looked like genius, until the market turned.” He then had to face the clients he had sold and tell them he really know what he was doing. He then started on path to figure out how to get “guaranteed returns.” He found this in unique places by learning how people could learn to stop overpaying on taxes, interest, and improper loan or insurance structures. He calls this “financial efficiency.”

He also spent time in a family office modeled after the Rockefeller model, but wanted to find a way for small business owners and entrepreneurs, who weren’t billionaires, to get the same type of benefits and has spent his life over the last decade doing so.

Garrett sites an interesting stat, “At 65 years old, 98% of entrepreneurs are not economically independent – meaning they can’t afford to retire and pay their bills.”

“Great intent and hard work with a bad philosophy still leads to bankruptcy or financial failure”

At the 12 minute mark, Garrett talks about his strategy and top misconceptions people have about wealth. He definitely kills some sacred cows and show you a whole different way of looking at building your wealth.

The 5 Levers to Manufacture Financial Independence:

1. Boost Your Profits: Keep more of what you make. Most businesses overpay on taxes,, overpay on investment fees, insurance costs, and interest.
2. Strategically Engineer Wealth:
   1. Focus don’t diversify.
   2. Build your foundation – Liquidity, corporate structure, umbrella policies
   3. Asset protection
   4. Financial Team
   5. Growth – aligned with your investor DNA – your interests, capabilities
3. Accelerate Investment Income: Any asset that is not producing cash flow, tap into it and make sure it is producing as it should.
4. Scaling Business Revenue: Garret calls this the “game changer.” Giving up things that don’t bring the most value. True delegation.
5. Make it Count: You are your greatest asset. Have a life and live it. Wealth isn’t just the man that has it, but the man that lives it.

One thing You Can do Under Each Lever:

1. When it comes to taxes. Can you reclassify your business income? Does it make sense to set up a corporation for what you do as there are tax advantages in doing so. For example, distribution is taxed at different rates.
2. #1 thing to strategically engineer wealth: Go to your bank and setup a separate account. Every time you pay yourself from your business, take a percentage of that into that account first – automate savings. This builds liquidity and allows you to save on in sequential costs. You can also eliminate budgeting and pinching pennies.
3. If you have a retirement plan, you can move it over to a self-directed plan which takes away restrictions and can help you lower fees. You can also use the rule of 72T.
4. Delegate a role in the right way - make them in charge of it. They own it. You don’t dictate any more. Give up you top 3 time wasters and focus on the top 3 things you are good at.
5. Take more time off from business and your income will go up. Why? You learn to delegate, hire the right people to run things, and are more relaxed and refreshed.

At the 32 minute mark, Garrett talks about the Rockefeller Habits and setting up a family office.

“The more we invest in ideas and people instead of stocks and bonds, the more likely we are to perpetuate wealth.”

Single most important piece of advice for entrepreneurs?

Have a greater vision than any problem. As long as your vision is bigger, you will continue to be resourceful. The way you know your vision is big is if you don’t know how to accomplish it by yourself.

What have you learned about leadership from building businesses?

• Communicating the difficult things is absolutely critical. The sooner you do it, the better and the more trust built.
• Empowering people and finding the right culture makes doing things much easier.

Secrets for putting a rockstar team together?

• Create such an attractive environment that people will do whatever they can to be a part of it.
• Create the expectations and make sure that people are willing to live up to them and go through the “hoops” needed to become a part of your team
• The longer the hiring process the better with specific tasks
• The more you do up front, the better
• Lastly, the wife test. If they meet Garrett’s wife and she says no, then that’s it.

The 3 measures of worth? Distinguishing price vs. cost. Vs. value. Value first, cost second, price third.

Best Quote: "No one shrinks their way to wealth. Production and expanding your means is the best way.”

Misfit 3:

1. Budget differently. Setup a wealth capture account stop borrowing to consume.
2. Increase your efficiency. Are you overpaying on tax, interest fees, investment fees, or insurance?
3. Expand your means. What is one thing you could do today to scale your business? What is one thing you can delegate? And what is the one thing you should do more of?

In this episode, Dave is excited to welcome Hugh Ballou. Hugh is an incredibly interesting guy. He is an award winning conductor that has become a highly sought after Motivational Speaker, Leadership Trainer, and Author.

Hugh teaches leaders around the globe how to build synergy with teams and how to build effective processes that bring success to any organization, He teaches business executives how an orchestra conductor brings out the best skill of the players that have been hired.

He works with organizations throughout the globe, has written 5 books on Transformative Leadership, and is the host of the Orchestrating Success podcast.

This is a little different show in that Hugh and Dave also recorded this live online, so make sure to not only listen here, but check out the show notes to watch the live broadcast.

www.​HughBallou.com

www.Hughballoupodcast.com

www.HughBalloublog.com

Hugh spent his career as a musical conductor working from small to large megachurches and working with top orchestras for almost 40 years. Hugh is an entrepreneur many times over having had many businesses including a small camera store he bought in Florida that was barely surviving and made it into a multi-million dollar enterprise. Hugh talks about what he calls “pull leadership” and how being a conductor is not being a dictator, but being an influence that helps people to perform at a higher level.

How do the principles of conducting an orchestra translate and relate to creating a successful business?

• You must have a clear vision of where you are going and a written plan (strategy) to get there
• The conductor can’t play the instruments, but can only train people and pull them to raise the bar on their own performance. Leading a business requires the same actions. As a leader, you must be willing to train and pull people to raise the bar.

What are things that leaders can do to help people raise their bar?

If you want to transform your results and your team, you begin by transforming yourself. Leadership is about identifying your gaps – what you are and aren’t good at. Attention to detail is critical. Leaders shape the culture, but must have a clear vision to do so.

At the 10 min mark, Hugh discusses his 4 Leadership Principles in detail and how to execute them:

1. Foundation – Where you are going
2. Relationships – Who you are working with (Hire the best people)
3. Systems - Rehearse for success
4. Balance - Strategic rest/making it all work

"How we do anything is how we do everything”

You must be transparent and be willing to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable and transparent is misinterpreted as a weakness. People will know when you are not authentic.

At the 20 minute mark, Hugh talks about the traits of Transformational Leadership.

At the 25 minute mark, Hugh talks about challenges he’s had to overcome as an entrepreneur and the principles used in doing so.

• “None of us is as smart as all of us”
• Compromise is lose-lose, Consensus is win-win
• It is a simple as believing in self, having a system, and then building the relationships.
• In order to succeed, you not only need an idea, you must do something about it, regardless of what people say. Act
• Many people look outside themselves for the answer when the answer is already there within in them. ​

Leadership comes down to 3 things:

• Leaders get things done
• Leaders understand how to get things done
• Leaders influence other people and help them unlock their potential

FOCUS = Free of Clutter and Unnecessary Stuff

Best Quote: "The Ballou Principle: 10% is what you know. 90% is what you don’t know that you don’t know. 90% of the iceberg is underwater that holds up the 10%. Stay humble and keep working on your 90%.”

Hugh's Misfit 3

1. Understand why what you are doing or your vision is important. Spend time on this. Focus on the why before the what.
2. Be able to articulate this why and vision carefully. What does it look like? What is the impact it will have when fully developed? We must think of ROI (return on investment), but we must also think of ROL (return on life). Is what you are providing going to make a lasting impact on other people’s lives?
3. Hire a coach. You must be aware that you there is more you can learn and be guided on. The most dangerous leader is one who thinks they know it all. Look at that 90% that you don’t know.