Episode 293: Talking “Entrepreneurship” with the Business Growth Guru, Cameron Herold

Hal Elrod: Goal achievers, hello. It’s Hal Elrod and welcome to the Achieve Your Goals Podcast. Today, I get to talk to a friend of mine and when I say talk to, we’re going to talk. I was chatting with him a few minutes ago and I said, “Hey,” I was prepping for today’s discussion, conversation, interview, whatever you want to call it and I said, “I really want it to be just an open dialogue like you and I were sitting at a coffee shop just talking about entrepreneurship.” And he said, “Absolutely.” He’s all for it. So, that’s what we’re going to do today. And if you are not familiar with my friend, my guest, Cameron Herold, he is known around the world as the business growth guru. He’s the mastermind behind hundreds of companies’ exponential growth and he’s that rare individual who not only possesses knowledge and experience but also the ability to present it clearly and effectively. That’s not always one and the same. You have people often that they’re genius at what they do, they’re brilliant in business but if you ask them, “Hey, teach me what you do,” they don’t quite know how to articulate it. And that is one of the reasons because Cameron is so good, he was called, “The best speaker I’ve ever heard,” by Forbes Magazine publisher, Rich Karlgaard.

And Cameron captures business audiences, educates them, and empowers them to take the actionable steps needed for hyper-growth. And if you’re listening to this, as I know my audience, 80 plus percent of you, of us are entrepreneurs. Many of you are considering it. I’ve always said everybody should at least consider it. And today’s conversation I think is going to be one where whether you are a seasoned entrepreneur or what they call wantrepreneur, right, you’re thinking about it, I think you’re going to get a lot of value. And I just want to mention before I bring him on, he’s also the author of four successful business books, Double Double, which is the one that he became kind of famous for, Meetings Suck, Free PR, and the one that he and I co-authored together with Honoree Corder, The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs. And it is my pleasure to bring on my good friend, Cameron Herold.

[INTERVIEW]

Cameron Herold: Hey, Hal. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. I was hoping you were going to mention the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I saved the best for last, right?

Cameron Herold: Well, it’s funny because my first book, Double Double, I actually met the founder or the CEO of a company called Greenleaf Books. He’s from Austin where you live and Clint was in the bathroom at MIT. I was speaking at MIT, and I’m like, “Hey, I need you to publish my book.” He’s like, “I don’t even know who you are.” And so, I met him in the bathroom and then you and I, I was walking to the bathroom, you were walking back from the bathroom. You asked me if I would co-author the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs with you. I think I just got to hang out in bathrooms now because I…

Hal Elrod: Yeah.

Cameron Herold: Two books from bathrooms.

Hal Elrod: That’s where the magic happens, ladies and gentlemen, right? Yeah, if you go to an event, make sure you hang out in the bathroom. Who did I talk to today? I talked to someone who met, oh, now I’m butchering the whole story, but basically it was like he waited for… Oh, John Travolta. He wanted to meet John Travolta and he went to an event where John Travolta was at and just waited at the bathroom. He’s like he got to go to the bathroom and sure enough, he walks into the bathroom. They got a selfie together and, yeah, it was funny. Yeah. So, what’s new, man? What’s new in life, in business? What’s occupying your consciousness right now?

Cameron Herold: I’ll give you one that’s kind of different. My oldest son so I have two boys, 18 and 16, and my oldest started university in September, went away from Vancouver where I split my time between Vancouver and Scottsdale. And in Vancouver, he had a chance to go to a couple of universities in town and he chose to go to one that is a flight away, a short flight, but he’s going to the University of Victoria in Commerce. And I dropped him off there, August 30, filled with pride and excitement and nervous for him but also so sad. I’ve never had those emotions mixed together like pride is a happy feeling but I was sad. You know, excitement is supposed to be a happy feeling but I was sad and I just had this horrible feeling of like, “Wow, when am I going to see you next?” And it was a really, really hard feeling to wrap my head around and he comes home Friday for the first time. I went over there a couple of weeks ago to visit with him but he’s coming home Friday for Canadian Thanksgiving and I’m kind of excited but it also is this dawning of that next stage of my life and then the next stage of his. He’s becoming a young man and moving out into the world and I’m moving towards that empty nest stage where it’s interesting.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I recently had that. I don’t know that I have really. I’m always really, really present and if somebody talks about, “Oh,” like my wife used to say, “You know when our kids are going to leave someday,” and I’m going, “That’s not for a long time. Don’t think about that.” I don’t know what it was but the other night I had that. I was like, you know, my daughter just turned 10 but obviously, it goes by real fast better than I do, right? And I’m like you start to get little signs of like, “Hey, sweetie, you want to go do our favorite thing in the world?” “No, I want to hang out my friend.” What? Wait, what? No. It’s already happening?

Cameron Herold: That’s the initial stage of them breaking away is they don’t want to do that weekend away or they come and go, “Hey, I’m going to go with my friend’s family on this vacation for three days,” and you’re like, “Oh, I’m going to miss you.” Like you’re so excited for them but it’s like, “Oh, I’ll miss you,” and then you realize, “Our job is to kick them out of the nest, right?”

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Well, it is but I’m reading a book right now and the timing was kind of perfect. It just came into my life. It’s called Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers.

Cameron Herold: You know what, I’ve actually read an article about that.

Hal Elrod: Really?

Cameron Herold: Yeah. And that is or it was an excerpt from that book that my ex sent me because she and I co-parent together and it’s about that really, really keeping that open relationship and trust. To tell you one big thing, I learned this from Burning Man a couple of years ago, real pure radical candor, radical openness, radical honesty with your children.

Hal Elrod: Yeah.

Cameron Herold: Not so much them being honest with you but if you want them to be honest with you, if you want them to come to you and be vulnerable, you have to be with them. So, you have to truthfully answer every question they ask you about anything. So, if your kid asks you about drugs and you’ve done them, you have to say, “Yes, I did them,” and then explain why you did, what you did like and didn’t like because otherwise, how are they ever going to feel comfortable in coming to you? It’s like whoa, that’s tough. That’s interesting.

Hal Elrod: Well, I’m glad you said that because the timing is perfect. My daughter just asked me, “Dad, how much money do we make? Are we millionaires? How does that…” And I’m like, “Ah, well…” Actually, I didn’t read this in a book. I think it’s called the Opposite of Spoiled. I think that’s the one and we talked about when you get asked that question, don’t just answer it because your kids have no context of money or they have not no context but there’s this, you know, “You make $10,000? That’s crazy. You’re rich.” So, what they said is it’s a thought you say, “Yeah I’m happy to sit down and show you but first we’re going to go over all of our bills.”

Cameron Herold: All of our expenses.

Hal Elrod: All of our expenses. Yeah. Right. And then they go, you know, because then you know how different that is. If they go, “Wait. You have $8,000 a month in expenses?” So, then when you make 10,000, they go, “That’s not that much.”

Cameron Herold: Exactly.

Hal Elrod: And so, we had that. It was literally I think it was the night before last and she asked it. I’m like I felt that like, “How do I answer this?” And I said, “Hey, sweetie, I’m happy to answer that but we got to sit down and I need to show you. I can’t just tell you. I got to show you so you understand the whole thing.”

Cameron Herold: Here’s the electrical bill and here’s the cable bill and here’s the car bill and here’s mommy’s bill.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Here’s the credit card debt, here’s the mortgage, it’s how much we owe on the house. Well, I’ll tell you and this might end up being a parenting episode, but some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten on parenting and it’s very much along those lines, Cam, is it was from Joe Rogan. I was watching an episode of his podcast and he said that most parents when their kids do something wrong that doesn’t reflect the values of the family or whatever or the parents hold true that most parents condemn the kid. They criticize the kid. They get upset. They punish the kid. And what that does is it creates – there’s a lot of negative result of consequences. It creates separation, it creates shame, it creates where you feel like the parent is superior, part of that separation. And Joe says that, “Whenever my kid does something wrong, I immediately search my memory banks for when I’ve done that wrong thing.”

Cameron Herold: Yeah.

Hal Elrod: Right? And I go, “Oh, yeah, you know what, when I was your age, I did the exact same thing or something similar,” and they go, “What? You did?” And all of a sudden, wow, you’re up here, you’re connected.

Cameron Herold: My 16-year-old came home and he was kind of no drinking that I talked to him about it the next day. I’m like, “God, I was your age I was drinking and I really threw up at my friend’s house.” He’s kind of looking at me and he realized like, “You’re not mad at me.” I’m like, “No, I’m mad that you were supposed to be home at 10 and you got home at 11 but I’m not mad that you’re drinking. You’re 16. Of course, you’re going to be drinking. I mean, that’s why the drinking age is only 19 in Canada. It probably should be lower but I just want you to tell me the truth. And if you’re scared…” By the way, parenting, this could be a whole parenting episode but still related to business. Running a company is almost the same as building a family. You know, I talk to companies I’m like, “Why would you do a quarterly review with employees? Those are stupid. Would you ever do a quarterly review with your kid?” They’re like, “No.” “So, if your kid does something wrong, do you wait until the end of the quarter to tell them?” “No. You tell them right away.” “What’s good to tell them, ‘Well, you shouldn’t do this. This is what I want you to do. This is how you made me feel.’ You talk to them the same way.”

“And if they do something right, you wait to the end of the quarter to tell them?” “No.” “When do you tell your kid?” “Well, I tell them right away.” “Great. How often you praise your kid?” “Oh, I praise them all the time.” “Do that with your employees.” Growing employees is the same as growing our kids, right? Our job with our kids is to raise these happy, healthy, independent kids who can eventually leave the nest and do it on their own. Our job in companies is to raise these happy, independent, strong employees who can do it on their own. Our job is to grow people. Our job is to grow kids.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I love that and I think that it parallels meaning I often said to my wife recently when she was disciplining the kids, I go, “Look, I think that we should discipline our kids the way we would discipline a friend, right?” meaning you would never talk condescendingly like that to your friend if she did something wrong. You would say, “Hey, that really hurt my feelings.” Right?

Cameron Herold: Go to your room.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go to your room and it’s like, “Screw you. I’m out here like we’re not friends anymore.”

Cameron Herold: Stay on the floor in the corner. You’re a bad friend.

Hal Elrod: It goes both. “Well, I’m going to spank your butt.” You’re like, “What? Get out of here.”

Cameron Herold: I saw a funny cartoon about that. The father and the mother comes in and she goes, “Hey, you know, I was in our 12-year-old son’s room and I found all this porn and S&M and bondage gear in his room.” The dad goes, “Well, I sure as hell wouldn’t spank him.”

Hal Elrod: That’s funny. I thought you’re going to say, “Hey, take that from him and bring it to our room.”

Cameron Herold: Yeah. It’s better to tell, “I wouldn’t spank him for it. That’s for sure.”

Hal Elrod: That’s funny. That’s really funny. So, entrepreneurship is the road less traveled, right? I’ve spoken on this podcast so much about it that everybody should, A, I think we have a responsibility to have multiple streams of income because as we’ve seen whether you’re an entrepreneur or corporate America when the economy turns, if you only have one source of income and all your eggs they’re in that basket, you might be in a lot of trouble and I have been in the past. Sorry. That’s a kind of a tangent but how did you become an entrepreneur, Cam? What’s your journey? How did that start out?

Cameron Herold: Well, so I was groomed as an entrepreneur. I was raised as an entrepreneur. It’s funny. I think on this whole entrepreneurial journey, I think what you just touched on is something I agree more with, which is that people should be entrepreneurial, but not necessarily quit their job and just be an entrepreneur.

Hal Elrod: Sure.

Cameron Herold: I think that some people have the DNA to be an entrepreneur, right? We have the DNA traits and we’re okay with that kind of risk and work and balance, and we’re good at sales and marketing ourselves, which you need to be an entrepreneur. But I think some people should have a job like the reality is only 3% of the world should be entrepreneurs and 97% should be working for them. Those are entrepreneurs that run companies with teams of people. But I think everyone should be more entrepreneurial, right? So, if you get fired, you can pick it up and run or you can do the stuff that you love and do it for five companies instead of for one company. But I don’t think a lot of people should go out and necessarily try to start their own company. I think there’s an awful lot of people that are struggling with that. It’s because they don’t have the skillset and they don’t have the entrepreneurial DNA to do it.

Hal Elrod: Well, it goes along with what that’s very similar to what we talked about before we started recording, which is I told you that I recently and actually, I’ll share this with the audience. They’ve never heard this, but I recently had almost a nervous breakdown, like a pre-nervous breakdown, which I’ve never really had and it was because I’ve been trying to build a team since December and I learned the hard way that, “Oh, I’m not supposed to build a team or at least not run a team.” So, in the same way that you say some people being an entrepreneur is not in their DNA, managing people and managing processes and managing projects is definitely not in my DNA. So, any more on that in terms of you’ve worked with from 1-800-GOT-JUNK? to you’ve been involved in some really successful companies and now you teach entrepreneurs how to be successful with their companies? So, in that regard, have you seen in terms of like personality type, just in general, like on the concept of what type of person or if we should, or how we should, I’m having trouble phrasing the question, but…

Cameron Herold: No, I get it.

Hal Elrod: How do we know I guess where we fit? How do we know what we’re meant to do? How do we figure out what our strengths are, what are natural geniuses are? Are there questions we can ask? Are there other people we can ask? How do we get clear on what we’re supposed to do that will make us happy, fulfilled, and then leverage our strengths?

Cameron Herold: So, I’ll answer the first part first on the entrepreneurial DNA and then I’ll answer the second part on what should we do and ability stuff. So, on the entrepreneurial DNA or the entrepreneurial traits, I was on a flight from Chicago to Miami and I was sitting beside this guy who was very distracted, very ADD. During our conversation, he went through an emotional roller coaster three times like very bipolar and he kept tapping on his leg and touching his nose which is a nervous tic that is a sign of Tourette’s. Another sign of Tourette’s is thinking out loud. Now, those three traits are very, very kind of talked about by the medical community as diseases but most entrepreneurs, most entrepreneurial CEOs or entrepreneurs have ADD which is not a disorder. Attention deficit disorder or it can be an attention deficit disbursement or attention disbursement is a strength as an entrepreneur. When you see everything around you, when you see what’s happening to your customers, the suppliers, the economy, the market, your website, when you notice stuff jumping off a spreadsheet, you notice the tiniest little details, those are strengths as an entrepreneur.

Now, if you’re an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer, ADD is a disorder, right? You can’t be that distracted, but as an entrepreneur, you need to be distracted. You need to see everything. He had that. The second thing that he had was this bipolar. So, the mania is the upside. Well, as an entrepreneur, you need to have that manic crazy energy. You’ve got it. And that’s why people follow us. They follow that excitement. They follow that enthusiasm. They follow that energy. You know, think when was the last time you met an engineer or a banker or a doctor who was inspiring? Not that often. Kind of flat boring, but they’re supposed to be even-keeled, right? Entrepreneurs aren’t supposed to be even-keeled. The stress and depression is simply us course-correcting because we burned out our adrenals and we often work too hard and we don’t take enough time to course correct or to recharge. And then that Tourette’s, that thinking-out-loud component of a Tourette’s is something that’s very endearing as an entrepreneur because people trust us because we say what’s on our mind, we say what we feel, we wear our heart on our sleeves but in the medical community, you can’t say what you feel or as an engineer like  -you following?

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Actually, brilliant. Yeah.

Cameron Herold: So, I’m sitting with this guy and I told him those three things and he’s looking at me and he’s like, “How do you know that about me?” And I’m like, “I just know you’re an entrepreneur.” I said, “What do you do?” And he said, “I’m an entrepreneur.” And I said, “Well,
how big is your company?” He’s like, “It’s pretty big. It’s like, 700, 800, or something. I’m like, “Okay, 700,000, 800,000,” and I’m like, “How many employees you got?” He’s like, “Fourteen, fifteen.” I’m like, “So it’s a small business.” He goes, “No, no, it’s big. We’re operating in like seven countries.” I said, “Why did you have 14 or 15 employees?” He goes, “No, 14,000, 15,000 employees.” “Wait. I thought you said 700,000 in revenue?” He’s like, “No, 700 million or 800 million in revenue.” I’m like, “What do you do?” He’s like, “I’m the largest Hispanic-owned company in the United States.” This was Marcelo Claure who started Brightstar. Marcelo sold Brightstar for over a billion dollars about two years later and became appointed as the CEO of Sprint. So, I was coaching him when he was CEO and his COO. I was coaching his second command for 18 months, Jaime Jones. Marcelo was a classic entrepreneur but if he had listened to the doctors or lawyers or the teachers telling him that he was a problem, he never would have done what he had done.

So, those are some of the entrepreneurial DNA traits is if you know you’re different, if you know you think different, if you’re distracted and seeing stuff, think of those as your superpowers. If that gives you confidence, then you might have what it takes to go be an entrepreneur.

Hal Elrod: I love that. I mean, what you’re talking about in terms of the entrepreneur being, well, I think what really resonated with me it’s because I just had this conversation with my daughter this morning is about the ADHD. “Dad, I have ADHD. I don’t like that.” I’m like, “First of all, I don’t know that that’s a disorder. Second, it’s a benefit.” Yeah. I mean, I say, “You have to work hard to focus. Well, people that don’t have ADHD or whatever, I don’t know what name it would give it but they have hard to come up with good ideas.”

Cameron Herold: But maybe we don’t try to get her to work hard to focus. Maybe we get her to realize that your focus will be in 20-minute blocks. So, I sit in probably six different places in my home. I work from home. I sit in about six different places during the day. I stand up and I move. I can’t sit in the same place all day long. So, I’ve got this kind of bouncy chair that’s over by the counter that I sit at. I’ve got one couch in my living room. I’ve got this long leather chaise by the fireplace I’m in right now. I go and work for my tennis club like I need to move around and I use Pomodoro so I work in 20-minute sprints then I take a 10-minute break. We can’t try to get somebody who is ADD to focus for long periods of time but you can also not get a professional athlete to do their sport for 50 hours a week either.

There’s no professional tennis player that plays tennis 50 hours a week. They might have three matches in the course of a week and each match is two hours or three hours total. So, they’re practicing the rest of the time but their game-on focus, six to eight hours a week. There’s no professional basketball player or football player like they play one game a week, two games a week. The rest of the time they’re in downtime or they’re cross-training. Why are we as entrepreneurs thinking we need to be so focused and game-on 50 hours a week? It’s impossible. So, I think the school system really hurt us as kids because it told us to get a tutor to work on our weaknesses. What they should have said was delegate your weaknesses to someone who’s really strong at that, work together and collaborate as a team, submit your projects together as a team and I’ll give all of you an A. That’s what being an entrepreneur is. It’s the who problem, not the how problem. We spend so much of our time figuring out how to do something instead of figuring out who to do it with or who to do it for us.

Hal Elrod: Talk about Pomodoro for anyone that isn’t familiar with that and it was a great reminder from – I wrote it down as a reminder that I need to get back to working in that fashion.

Cameron Herold: Pomodoro is based on an Italian student who couldn’t focus for very long and someone gave him an Italian food timer that was shaped like a tomato, which I think in Italian is Pomodoro.

Hal Elrod: Got it. Yeah.

Cameron Herold: So, he took this food timer and turned it to 20 minutes and he focused for 20 minutes and then the bell went off. So, he kind of like Pavlov’s dog. He rewarded himself with the bell and took a 10-minute break to go for a walk or to read a book or just to turn his cobwebs off in his brain. And then he turned on the timer for 20 minutes and he worked hard and focused for 20 minutes and then when the bell went off, he took another break. So, like I have a little timer on my phone. It’s called Focus Time and I just press the button then it sets it off.

Hal Elrod: Download that right now. That’s something that when I was in sales when I was 19 years old, I had this realization and it’s interesting because I didn’t know about the Pomodoro Technique back then and I called it half hours of power. And it was just intuitive so I would make phone calls for 30 minutes as fast as I possibly could. You know, once I got someone on the phone, of course, I didn’t rush the conversation. I would just have a conversation, but I was calling prospects to schedule appointments but I just intuitively realized that that’s how it would work for me where instead of sitting there, you know, the idea of sitting down for two hours of calls was like, “Oh my gosh.” I would procrastinate. I would never even get started because it was such a daunting task. And then I created this half-hour power strategy where I went 30 minutes to call as fast as I can and then I earned a 10-minute break, right? And what you’re doing is the psychology is, “Oh, like that breaks right around the corner. That reward is right around the corner. It’s a real short sprint,” and then I get to rest, relax, recharge, check Facebook, drink water, whatever. And then I would start half-hour power number two, right? Yeah.

Cameron Herold: Can I ask you something? You mentioned sales and consistent and we’re just sitting in a coffee shop having a chat.

Hal Elrod: Yeah.

Cameron Herold: Why is it you were doing sales with Cutco?

Hal Elrod: Yep.

Cameron Herold: And everyone I’ve met at Cutco, Jon Ruhlin, yourself, Brad Weimert, everyone I’ve met at Cutco I really like as humans. There’s something about the DNA type they recruited for because you guys were all doing it in different cities. It’s not like you were all friends.

Hal Elrod: No.

Cameron Herold: I think you met through Cutco later but what was it that Cutco looked for in their people? Do you know what they were recruiting for? Were there behavioral traits or where they did the recruiting?

Hal Elrod: So, what’s interesting is so it was primarily college students that was kind of in 1981, Cutco I think bought this company, Vector Marketing, or I don’t know the exact story but they decided they would start recruiting from colleges. They figured, “Well, hey, college students are young, they’re ambitious, they’re hungry to learn versus recruiting someone that is much older and maybe at the end of their career or whatever.” And then what they did is they created a really effective presentation and a really simple effective way to train it. And so, basically, the product is so good. So, by the way, I’ll get to really answer your question but we have to understand kind of the backstory here for context and that is the product is so good that if you simply utilize some basic sales psychology and you build value and create a need and all of those things, if somebody uses the knives they go, “Oh my god, these are like the greatest thing ever.” And then it was just a matter of basic understanding of, well, how do you actually lead someone from, “These are really great and sharp,” to, “Do I need them? Can I afford them? Are they going to last? Is it the right decision to buy?”

And so, what Cutco did is they basically hired anyone, any college student that came in. I shouldn’t say – it wasn’t any but it was anyone that it was like this person is the type of person, right attitude, they seem sharp, pardon the pun, and I want on my team. And then you, obviously, couldn’t determine who was actually going to follow through and work hard. So, especially at the college level, there wasn’t a lot of work experience to draw from. And so, what happened is the cream rose to the top as in most fields, industries, companies and so let’s say they would interview 20 college students. They would hire let’s say 15 of them, right? And then they would train those 15. They would have a weekend three-day training and the training was you would role play that presentation over and over and over and over again. And then when you went on appointments, you literally and it was actually brilliant, you would start by saying, “Hey, Cameron. I’m actually going to read all of this because I’m new, and I don’t want to miss anything.” And that actually was great, because you’re like, “Oh,” like your sales wall would drop, right, because they’re like, “This person doesn’t even know what they’re doing.” And then you could actually really listen versus like, “Oh, they’re trying to sell me.” They’re like, “They don’t even know what they’re doing,” and then you’d listen and then the product and presentation was so good that the product would kind of sell itself.

And from there, it was who were the people that actually were willing to work hard over an extended period of time once that initial excitement, infatuation period, as I would call it, would wear off. And that’s where the Brad Weimerts and the John Ruhlins and me and Jon Berghoff and all these folks, we were the ones that actually, you know, because anybody could sell the products that was so good. So, it wasn’t that they were hiring, right? They weren’t doing personality assessments and it wasn’t that they hired effectively. It was that their program was so effective, that the people that were willing to put in the work and overcome the adversity and the rejection and that sort of thing, those are the people that you’ve met, so to speak.

Cameron Herold: Interesting.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. So, it was a program that was so effective that it allowed people with no sales experience as long as they had the will to work and to keep working, it allowed them to kind of emerge and become a better version of themselves. Like before Cutco, I was a really mediocre high school student. I was mediocre in college. I wasn’t popular. I didn’t play sports. I wasn’t one of those kids that you’re like, “Man, you’re good at everything like you’re going to, of course, be good at this.” I was the opposite. But Cutco was so effective that it allowed what was the best in me to emerge. And then a big part of it, personal development is a part of the culture. So, I was learning in my three-day training about positive thinking, I’m like, “What’s that? I’m 19. I’ve never heard of positive thinking.” You know, I was hearing quotes by Jim Rohn like you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I’m like, “What? Interesting.” So, I’m 19 and…

Cameron Herold: Well, a lot of that is part of the DNA that they groomed you in as well then?

Hal Elrod: That was it. They have the leadership and I would say that the personal development as part of the culture, you know, I think that was definitely or I know that was definitely a part of it. But I always say people ask, you know, if they’re interviewing me like, “How did you become like this, whatever, how you are?” I say 50% of it is my mom and dad and 50% of it is the leaders at Cutco Cutlery that my manager, my mentor, his manager, mentor of mine that taught me all of the guiding principles, if you will, that allowed me to create success in Cutco and then in everything I did after that.

Cameron Herold: That’s really cool. Those were big lessons.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, you said you were groomed as an entrepreneur. What were the first entrepreneurial opportunities that you took advantage of?

Cameron Herold: Yes. My father was an entrepreneur and so were both my grandfathers. My father raised my brother and sister and I to all be entrepreneurs. We all own our own companies today. And he showed us that being an employee was a bad idea because we were trading time for money. Being an employee was a bad idea because you didn’t get to control how much free time you could take. You didn’t get to control your vacations. And being an employee was a bad idea because you had to do what other people wanted you to do. You didn’t get to do the work that you wanted to do that you love doing. So, he said, “When you are an entrepreneur, you can rig all the rules in your own favor to give yourself only the jobs that you love to do and you can hire other people to do it.” And I was like, “Whoa.” So, it was never about making money. It was always about controlling your time and controlling what you got to work on and that was really the powerful lesson.

And then he would have us do these little businesses. I did a talk that’s on the main TED.com website about raising kids as entrepreneurs. It’s how I was raised and all these little business ventures that I had by the time I was 18. You know, in turn, that when I was 21 years old, I had 12 full-time employees in my company that I owned and I was in the second year in university and I had a business with 12 employees.

Hal Elrod: Wow.

Cameron Herold: So, yeah, I really have never known jobs per se. You know, the only real jobs I’ve ever had I was second in command for a couple of companies, but I really treated it like my business.

Hal Elrod: Wait. You said this earlier, we didn’t go down this aspect of it, the rabbit hole too much, but the idea that everyone should act, work like an entrepreneur because even if you’re at an organization, that’s how you rise up the organization. You go, “This person’s self-reliant. They’re creative. They’re innovative.” It’s like those traits of an entrepreneur. In fact, are you acting – go ahead.

Cameron Herold: We touched on a few of that in our book, The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs. You brought in a lot of the core stuff around the Miracle Morning components around the SAVERS and I brought in kind of some of the rest of the day and some of the entrepreneurial success habits, but some of what we covered in that book was around the areas of focus and leveraging a second-in-command and leveraging powerful vision statements like vivid visions to kind of grow your entrepreneurial life. So, I’ll try to share some of that in the book.

Hal Elrod: Absolutely. And I just found your talk that you just mentioned a minute ago. If anybody hasn’t seen this, Cameron Herold, Let’s Raise Kids To Be Entrepreneurs. That’s your TED talk on YouTube here which by the way, it looks like in Italian, it’s got like 1.8 million views, the Italian version. That’s crazy.

Cameron Herold: That’s funny.

Hal Elrod: Nice work. Isn’t it funny? In Miracle Morning, I’ve sold more copies in Brazil than in the US and any other country.

Cameron Herold: Great.

Hal Elrod: It’s so it’s so wild. Yeah. It’s interesting that sort of thing. But, man, so what’s next for you? What are you focused on? I know right now you’re doing a lot of coaching and consulting. Talk about what you’re doing now and what the future looks like.

Cameron Herold: Yeah. So, the pure focus for me right now is on growing what I call the COO Alliance, which is the only network of its kind in the world for the second-in-command. So, there are lots of these groups and masterminds for entrepreneurs. We have one that is only for the second-in-command. No CEOs allowed. Minimum revenue requirements is a minimum of 5 million in revenue for your company to qualify. So, that’s what I’m focusing on. I’ve got a podcast called the Second-in-Command Podcast, and we only interview the second-in-command.

Hal Elrod: You interviewed my second-in-command.

Cameron Herold: I did. Yeah. Everyone wants to hear Hal’s story. I want the rest of the story so I got to interview your second-in-command. It’s Tiffany, I think.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Tiffany Swineheart. Yeah.

Cameron Herold: Yeah. So, I had Tiffany on the show and got to hear her perspective of what it’s like building your business. It’s almost like asking a husband and wife. If I asked your wife, what’s it like raising your kids, she would tell me the story of how you raise your kids together, and it would be very true. And if I asked you how do you raise your kids, you would give me a very true story, but it would be different than your wife’s. Both would be true. So, that’s why we do the Second-in-Command Podcast is I just want the rest of the story.

Hal Elrod: I love that.

Cameron Herold: Yeah. And then my coaching, right, I coach CEOs and entrepreneurs of real companies all over the world. I’ve done speaking events now in 28 countries on six continents and then just chilling, hanging out. I’m going over to Europe again for the – all I’ve spent seven weeks in Europe since June 1. I’m going over to Europe again in a couple of weeks for my birthday. So, a lot of travel.

Hal Elrod: You speaking out there?

Cameron Herold: No, I’m going to a music festival. One of my clients owns an EDM festival with some of the top DJs in the world, so I’m going over to pretend I’m 25 years old and party with a bunch of 25-year-olds for my birthday.

Hal Elrod: I’ve hung out with you. Maturity wise, I think that you’re – you and I both. You’re 25. I’m like, I’m still 19. Yeah. I’m still that kid that I was when I was selling Cutco. I just keep…

Cameron Herold: You know what, I think we’re all 16-year-olds trapped in adult bodies.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. That’s true. And in terms of good and bad, we have the insecurities that we have like the personality traits that we had when we were a kid, right?

Cameron Herold: Those things are still there. It’s really hard to grow through that stuff. I think we have to embrace that. You know, we are still that child inside of us trying to get out or still scared and nervous, right? All of us are.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Well, I forgot or I don’t remember what movie it was but there was a film, there was a comedy, and she was just trying to parent her kids and they said something about, “We need an adult,” or she goes, “I need an adult,” and they go, “You are an adult.” She goes, “I need an adult to your adult.”

Cameron Herold: Awesome.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I mean, it’s funny right there. We still have that child inside us when we’re raising our kids and we’re like, “Man.” Interesting. We’re learning as we go. By the way, your book, obviously, Vivid Vision, of all your books and this is a weird question to ask because I co-authored one with you but do you have one? Because I do, right? I know I can answer this for me. It’s Miracle Morning, but do you have one? What’s your baby? What’s the one? Is it the first one? What’s your baby?

Cameron Herold: You know, it’s interesting. I don’t think it’s my baby but I think the one that I’m really impressed with is my most recent one, Free PR. Really strong and I actually co-author – I wrote it originally by myself. It was ready to go to print and then I had one of my former clients that I coached, Adrian, who is the founder of CanvasPop, I had Adrian spend a minute to read it and Adrian read through it and goes, “You know, you’ve got some amazing stuff, but I could add some on the digital side of Free PR because when you did all this stuff Facebook wasn’t around, LinkedIn wasn’t around.” I’m like, “You’re right.” So, he actually co-authored Free PR with me. We had Tucker’s group with Scribe. Tucker Max Group do the publication for us. It’s really good like it’s really, really, really, really good. And, yeah, I’m just really proud of that book because I think it’s very specific, easy to implement systems on how to generate free press for your company.

Hal Elrod: That’s great. And you know, Tucker, that’s funny, Jonathan Levi I interviewed, we had a conversation a time ago.

Cameron Herold: Great guy.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, and he did his book with Scribe. So, Tucker and Scribe are doing some great things in the publishing industry. What’s the best way if somebody wants to reach out to you, get a hold of you, look into your COO Alliance, that sort of thing?

Cameron Herold: Well, obviously, our five books are on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes. So, all of them are there so they can find and I would start with the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs for sure.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I echo that.

Cameron Herold: It’s just a really good book and it’s really good for people that are listening. I think it’s the right tribe for that one as a good starting point.

Hal Elrod: Sure.

Cameron Herold: And then the CameronHerold.com has all the rest of my content and links. Everything else is there as well.

Hal Elrod: Cool. Awesome, brother. It was a pleasure to have a coffee chat with you.

Cameron Herold: Yeah. Appreciate it.

Hal Elrod: I was sipping some coffee while we’re talking.

Cameron Herold: I’ve been awake for a number of hours so I’m on my tea now. If I had any more coffee at 10 o’clock, I’d be flying.

Hal Elrod: Got you.

Cameron Herold: You actually ruined my mornings, by the way.

Hal Elrod: You’re welcome.

Cameron Herold: Because now I wake up so darn early but here’s my new secret. So, I live in Vancouver part-time and I have this beautiful view of the mountains and ocean in downtown. What I do now is I sleep with my blinds open so I wake up to this beautiful sunrise at 6:00 over the mountains and I just wake up when the sun rises. And normally at my Miracle Morning is like hugging the pillow and rolling over a couple of times. I was never that big of a morning person but I tease you when I’m saying that you ruined my mornings. I really do enjoy waking up naturally as the sun comes up. It’s still an hour before everybody else’s anyway, right?

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I wish the sun would come up at four for me because I like waking up at 4.

Cameron Herold: I know, right?

Hal Elrod: Although, you know what, I realized I’m sure that I could get like some sort of thing in my – I’m sure there’s a wall-mounted picture frame that looks like a window that has a digital sunrise. I might have to see if that’ll trick my brain and if they don’t have that, I need to invent the Miracle Morning digital sunrise.

Cameron Herold: Ooh.

Hal Elrod: Yeah.

Cameron Herold: There you go.

Hal Elrod: Cool, brother.

Cameron Herold: All right, buddy. Thank you.

Hal Elrod: All right. It’s been a pleasure, Cam. I love you and great talk to you and I look forward to next time.

Cameron Herold: Thanks, buddy. Love you too. See you.

Hal Elrod: Take care.

[CLOSING]

Hal Elrod: All right, goal achievers. That was Cameron Herold, my good friend, co-author of The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs and author of quite a few other books as you heard at the beginning of the show. And check out his stuff. If you run a business, you want to run a business, or if you have kids, I’ve actually got it up, I’m actually about to go have lunch right now and I’m going to watch, I saw it years ago but haven’t seen in a long time, which is Cameron Harold’s TED Talk, Let’s Raise Kids To Be Entrepreneurs. So, great talk. Love you, goal achievers, and I will talk to you, guys and gals, next week. Take care.

[END]