IAM1061- Owner Helps People Accomplish Their Financials Goals

00:00:20.00] - Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

[00:00:47.50] - Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Daniel Blue of Quest Education. Daniel, it's great to have you on the show.

[00:00:56.10] - Daniel Blue

Gresh, thank you for having me. Looking forward to it.

[00:00:58.29] - Gresham Harkless

Looking forward to it as well. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Daniel so you can hear about some of the awesome things that he's doing. And Daniel is a Forbes contributor and owner of Quest Education. His company helps people access their retirement accounts penalty and tax-free to help them accomplish their financial goals, such as growing their business or paying off debt. After having a daughter at nineteen years old and overcoming OxyContin addiction, Daniel was able to make the transition from being an employee to an employer. Daniel, great to have you on the show again. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

[00:01:31.29] - Daniel Blue

Yes, sir. Let's get to it.

[00:01:32.79] - Gresham Harkless

Let's do it then. So to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on how you guys started, what I like to call your CEO story.

[00:01:41.09] - Daniel Blue

Yeah. So I came from a home where my parents got divorced when I was twelve. My mom pretty much raised me from that point on. So, single mom in California. Money was tight. So didn't grow up with a a ton of money. And, at that time, I just knew I was like, man, I don't wanna look broke. Right? My mom's struggling, busting her tail.

And, I just knew that the financial world was something I wanted to tap into. Ended up getting into sales at eighteen. I dropped out of college, and then I found myself in a position where I started to learn about self-directed retirement accounts and understand that there's this whole new world, not new. It's been around for decades, but there's another way to look at retirement accounts beyond just the stock market. And, ended up working for a company in the retirement account space for a few years and, was able to transition into becoming a business owner. We've been around for about three years now.

[00:02:31.00] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. Well, I appreciate you, sharing that and just getting the opportunity as I read in your bio, to get the opportunity to have more freedom and more empowerment, more opportunity by being able to know and understand that because I'm a big believer in knowledge, being empowered.

[00:02:46.00] - Daniel Blue

Yeah. For sure. And I'm not one of those people who grew up wanting to be a business owner. Right? You hear, like, Gary V talks about, he'd grab flowers on the street and then sell them and sell trading cards when he's, like, ten. Right? Like, there's a lot of people out there that have those stories of, you always wanting to become an entrepreneur at a young age. And that's cool. That just wasn't me. I was eighteen, just graduated high school. I was roofing. I went to college because society told me to, and I had no path. I didn't know what I wanted to do. Certainly, the thought of becoming an entrepreneur did not cross my mind.

But I'm a firm believer in networking, and I was able to network with the right kind of people when I was eighteen. Despite me dropping out of college, I was able to network, work my butt off, and, found sales. And, you know, I'm a big believer if you can get that crap down and understand sales and communication, no matter if you're a recovering drug addict if your call is dropout if you don't have a family with wealth. There's a lot of opportunity if you understand sales.

[00:03:43.59] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that. And I think so many times, and I'll say this often that we'll forget about the human aspect of business. And I think that you using the word, you know, communication, building relationships, networking, doing those things is to me at the heart of business. And if you're able to understand that and especially if you're able to excel, to me, the sky is the limit because you're able to have that human-to-human interaction that often can't be done necessarily as well by, you know, computers and different analytics and things like that.

[00:04:12.00] - Daniel Blue

Yeah. I mean, if you wanna go from being entrepreneur, self-employed, to leading a team and being an entrepreneur, you know, you have to be able to communicate, articulate your vision, you know, be able to pull people together and win together as a team. Can't do it alone. I mean, you certainly can make six figures on your own and hustle on your own and make money on your own. I'm not disputing that, but there are levels. Right? And, I'm not where I wanna be financially. I've got about fourteen employees, so we're a relatively small company. I just was at an event yesterday, and the co-CEO of Chipotle, he spoke, you know, and this dude had, you know, hundreds of thousands of employees. Right? Chipotle is massive.

So, I mean, there's just certainly levels to it, and there are two things that stuck out to me that he said yesterday is, you know, leadership is boiled down to two things. One, your team has to be confident in their ability. Two, your team has to be encouraged by their circumstances. And I was like, man, that's just so basic and so true. Like, yes, there has to be competence. Your team has to know what they're doing. But, two, like, you gotta lead them. You gotta make sure that they're encouraged in their environment. They're encouraged in their circumstances, and they see the vision and they're motivated. So there's just a lot that goes into it, but it all boils down to communication and listening and seeing how everyone can align and accomplish each other's goals together.

[00:05:24.30] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. I appreciate you for sharing that so much and giving through those nuggets in that pivot. I think so many times, often in the past because I'm a big believer and that is not necessarily hard, to to understand. You can say it simply, but you just have to be able to execute it regularly, getting everybody on those same, passing on that same role. So, I know you mentioned a little bit about your team and how you're leading people. Could you take us through a little bit more on that and how exactly you're serving the clients you work with?

[00:05:54.19] - Daniel Blue

So for me, it's all about being able to replicate yourself. Right? It's all about, you know, a struggle that that I've had and I'm still working on is empowering the team and delegating and putting people in the right spot. You know, there might be someone on the team that has certain skills, but you've got them performing a different set of tasks where they actually should be on this other side. And a lot of times, it's your ego. You cannot be self-aware. You're just so in the trenches where you're not seeing the forest. You're in the trees.

So it's just being able to just maximize your team. It's like a sports team. Right? So all people that like sports, you got your center, you got your point guard, you got people that could shoot three, you got people that can rebound. Like, are you setting up your team for success? And that's a struggle and a challenge for all business owners. Right? Like being able to hire the right kind of people, train the right kind of people, have a good culture, and just make sure that people are in the right seat, on the bus that you're driving.

[00:06:50.50] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense, and I think it's something that's, underrated because often success is a team sport, and you have to make sure that you're having people in the right spots and positions as you said so well with that analogy because I think so many times we all have our gifts and our talents, but to be able to kinda get everybody where they're at and to be able to be rowing in the same direction is really what, it comes down to as a leader. And so, I wanted to to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, and this could be for Quest Education or, yourself personally. But what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:07:22.10] - Daniel Blue

Just being able to help people understand in a basic way that they actually can access the money in their retirement account penalty and tax rate. There's this myth that if you have a 04:01 k or an IRA, that money is out of sight, out of mind. You can't control it. You can't access it. A lot of people are not getting the knowledge from their financial advisers or their CPAs, because it hurts the pocketbooks of the financial advisers. It goes against their business model. Or two, it's just a lack of knowledge. And there are ways if you're an entrepreneur, if you have, like, an LLC, sole proprietorship, you're a solopreneur, you've got some kind of side hustle, some entrepreneurial activity.

If that's you listening or watching this and you have a 04:01 k from an old job or an IRA, there are IRS-approved ways for you to access this money penalty and tax-free. And once people know that they can do that they start thinking about other ways to control their own money because at the end of the day, it's it's their money. Right? Like, they work for it. They should be able to control it and have more options besides just the stock market. If they like the stock market, great. I'm not here to be adverse to that. I'm just a firm believer an entrepreneur started the business to get more freedom, to have more time, to have more control. They should be able to have that with their retirement accounts, and those options are there. It's just a matter of them knowing how they work, and that's where we come in.

[00:08:42.79] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I appreciate you for sharing that. And as I said before, knowledge is power. And I think that, as you said, I think if you have an opportunity to have a business, you have the freedom. Or even if you don't have a business, you have you want to be able to have the freedom to be able to decide how you're going to invest your money, what that looks like, and I think having the awareness of all the different options that are available to you is one of the best ways to do that.

[00:09:05.20] - Daniel Blue

Yeah. I mean, it just comes down to knowing the options. Right? We don't know. We don't know. So being able to have that curtain pulled back and just know that it exists, is always nice to just have another tool in your tool belt.

[00:09:15.89] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. It never hurts to have tools in your tool belt. That's for sure. So, I wanted to, switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:09:30.50] - Daniel Blue

Routines. So, like, last night, I was telling you there's that event I went to where the co-CEO of Chipotle spoke We're networking. You know, I didn't get home till, like, eleven. I didn't go to bed till 11:30. I woke up every morning from about 04:20 to 04:30 to go to the gym. And I need sleep, man. Like, there's people out here that get five, six hours of sleep when they're good. I envy that. I wish that was me. I need about, like, seven to eight. Like, that's my sweet spot of being optimal and not being groggy and things like that. So I'm getting four and a half hours of sleep.

The alarm goes off. I'm like, man, I'm trying to go to the gym, but got up and I went. And I have that routine of just going in the morning and and just that's my time. That's my time to listen to a podcast or an audiobook or, hey, switch it up with some jams. And that's just my time to release my beast and release my stress and just have some time to just focus on what I'm gonna do that day, be intentional. So I do my best to just get in that routine and do that every day despite how I feel, despite my excuses, and I just set the tone for the rest of the day. It doesn't have to be the gym. It could be just something that's a routine for you in the morning. It's worked for me.

[00:10:34.29] - Gresham Harkless

I appreciate you sharing that. And I wanted to ask you now for what I call CEO nugget. So this might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you touched on, or you could tell a client, or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

[00:10:47.00] - Daniel Blue

The worst-case scenario or what you think, like, is ultimately gonna happen. Like, we all have that idea or that vision of, like, man, this is all gonna come to an end, or like, I'm stressed out about this happening. Like that worst-case scenario. Right? And that worst-case scenario is probably not even gonna happen. Like, the likelihood of it happening, yes, it's there. But, like, you're spending so much time thinking about, like, that worst-case scenario where you're missing out on the present. And I can't tell you how many times in business, I've thought about, oh, shoot, man. Like, this is gonna work. Like, I might lose a bunch of money. Like, am I gonna have to fold shop? Am I gonna have to quit? Like, what's going to happen?

And just like, man, what's the point of thinking about that? Like, now I'm thinking about something that's not even real. It hasn't even happened. So we forget that our mind is so powerful and our mind likes to play tricks on us. So just you just gotta chill out when you start to think like that and just know you're just tripping over something that is not even real, hasn't even happened, and you're taking away from the present and what you could do now to live a better life next month, next year, five years from now. So don't don't sleep on that.

[00:11:52.10] - Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, and we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So, Daniel, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:12:04.00] - Daniel Blue

Be okay with not paying yourself. There's been times in my business where you gotta write checks for other people. You gotta keep the ship floating. You gotta keep people in the game. So you gotta be prepared to not pay yourself for certain periods because money's going back into the business. So you gotta be ready for that.

[00:12:22.79] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. I feel like we always think of money and that's something that happens, but it's also time and energy. A lot of times, you're making those investments into the business, and you don't necessarily get those dividends right there, but it's all about investing those resources so that you have a vision, you have that opportunity, and it pays fruits later on. 

[00:12:45.00] - Daniel Blue

Yeah. I mean, you're investing in a startup, something that has a lot of risk of failing, but you were so crazy enough to believe in that dream and that vision that you put yourself in a position to make it happen. You invested time. You invested money. I guess it's not gonna happen overnight. People have this preconceived notion that they're gonna make it work in a year or two years. And I'm not saying that doesn't happen.

There's been some I know people that have struck it well with the business and they're doing well within a year or two. Like, that happens. But most of the people that I know and most people that you know too, you know, we're talking right now and the listeners, they know, like, anything about Apple, you think about Microsoft, you think about these big companies, like, it took them years. I mean, 05:10 years to break through and start seeing the fruits of their labor. So, it's the long game with being a CEO.

[00:13:33.79] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense, and I appreciate you sharing that because I think there's not enough narrative around that. One of the things that I remind myself and I'll say often is that the secret to overnight success is it takes ten years. And as you talked about, you know, Apple, you know, being in the garage or even if you've been online and you've seen the Jeff Bezos, picture of him with a, like, a cardboard box written in Amazon.com and, like, Sharpie.

[00:13:54.70] - Daniel Blue

Yeah.

[00:13:55.50] - Gresham Harkless

It doesn't happen overnight. And I think that part of the frustration that a lot of people have that we talked about in the nugget is because people don't realize that's going to take time. Yeah. They either fail. Most businesses fail.

[00:14:11.89] - Daniel Blue

Most businesses take a lot of time to make money. To be profitable, to be scalable, to hit that growth. It's like a kid. Right? Like, you start a business it's a kid. It's a baby. You can't even take care of yourself, then it grows into an instant. Then it's a toddler, then it can ride a bike without training wheels. You know? Then one day it gets its license, and it can drive, and then it turns into an adult. Right? It's, like, the same thing with the business.

[00:14:34.50] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think even to those people that sometimes do hit the quote-unquote, moral of the overnight success, so to speak, if you, like, listen to their story and some of the things that you do, sometimes you'll hear that they had certain skills, they had a certain experience. So even though they weren't building the business, they were building themselves or something around them to build the business. So it didn't necessarily happen overnight. It was still kind of, like, that painstaking grueling at times tasks and chopping at the tree, so to speak, to get to where you wanna be.

[00:15:03.39] - Daniel Blue

For sure. I hundred percent agree. There's, there's levels to it.

[00:15:06.79] - Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Well, Daniel, truly appreciate that definition, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find about all awesome things you and your team are working on.

[00:15:03.39] - Daniel Blue

Yeah. I think the best way to what I said connected with you in some way, shape, or form, and if you wanna check out more about what I'm doing, I've got a podcast called How Winners Win. We talk about winning in life, personal, financial, and business. I own a financial company, so we're gonna drop some nuggets on, you know, making money tax-free and things like that. But we also talk about, like, adversity and struggles. So, just being able to help as many people as we can become better versions of themselves. And then I'm pretty active on Instagram, Daniel Blue. You can follow me there. All my Facebook as well. And then I do my best to just put out relevant content that could entertain people, inspire them, and educate

[00:16:09.39] - Gresham Harkless

We will have those links and information in the show notes. Love the name of the podcast as well as how winners win, who doesn't wanna win, and so many different ways in life. So I love how you're able to incorporate that into all the knowledge and information that you have. So appreciate you, my friend, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:23 - Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.