In this specialized episode, Michael Ficara, Founder of The MAGS Group, LLC, shares how he applies his vast experience to provide insight about how to simplify your work as a founder to create more success with a fraction of the stress
You will discover:
– How to break free from the entrepreneurial cliches that are holding you back
– The cost of those blindspots that you don’t or won’t see
– How to leverage strategy and system to scale your success
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach and I’m here with yet another high demand coach. And that is Mike Ficara. He’s a seasoned entrepreneur and consultant, his core focus is on the growth and scaling strategies for businesses of any size. Now, Mike has had the opportunity to work in a variety of industries over his career going everywhere from the classroom to the boardroom. He’s taken existing businesses and allowed them to see massive growth and stability through just a variety of techniques. Now, he’s worked with a couple of brands, you might have heard of them, and NEC Nestle brand ethos and topscorer writing, among others, and he’s also the author of like socks on our rooster unbelievable title, by the way, and host the start down podcast, and also the three points podcast with his son, Anthony. Well, Mike, I’m so excited to have you on I had a chance to kind of stalk your website and podcasts and stuff ahead of time. And just love that. If you just pause now go check out his podcast. It’s fantastic. And so really excited to have you here on the show. Before we get into the really, really cool work that you’re able to do with your clients right now. I’d love to just rewind for a moment and hear what’s your story? What were you doing before getting into coaching? And how did that ultimately lead you to make the leap?
Michael Ficara
Yeah, yeah, no, thank you so much, Scott. And first of all, thanks for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. You know, I say Iron Man is my favorite Marvel character, some of the guy in origin stories, but I still think first Iron Man was the best movie ever made ever everything else was secondary. But my story is, you know, it’s the typical entrepreneur story now, but I didn’t know that growing up. You know, terrible student in school, I failed first grade. There’s a chapter in my book called I failed first grade. I always struggled school through school never really did well, watch all my friends go away to all these great colleges. I ended up going to community college, and never really knew what I wanted to major in. And then one day I was waiting tables in a restaurant and one of my former teachers came in and said, Hey, would you like to substitute teach and I’m like, Man, if I ever heard of an easy job, I will take that. So went substitute teacher and absolutely fell in love with education. So looked at my my, you know, college transcripts and said, What kind of get a degree and fastest. Turns out it was psychology with a minor in theology. So I did that. When I got my temporary teaching certificate, and still had to take a few more classes to graduate but taught for the better part of a decade, I taught ethics and Bible in a Catholic school. And then I went to get my Master’s in educational technology, and unknowingly went to go work for a startup after I got my master’s. And that startup got invested in from a guy by the name of Wayne Huizenga, which if you don’t know who he is, he’s the guy that grew blockbuster waste management, you stolen the Miami Dolphins down here by us in Florida. And I was promised everything under the sun to stock the afternoons equity, my own private plane, I got none of that. So when that ended, I had two options. One was to go back to the classroom, one was like, Wait a second, I think I could help people out and been doing that ever since?
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow. Well, fantastic. So if we were to fast forward, then because you’ve been doing this for a while, what would you say today is some of the most important work you do for your client?
Michael Ficara
You know, I think it’s, and we also if you got kids, or if you got a pet right there your favorite, and you don’t really realize what the faults are until someone else tells you. And I think in business, it’s the same mystery to most entrepreneurs, I know getting entrepreneurship not because, you know, they wanted a job. They’re doing it because of something they’re passionate about, but sometimes with that the blinders are on. And you may not see things, not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it’s just kind of seeing the dark spots or the blind sides, they may not see. And I think that’s some of the most important work I do is coming in and saying, Okay, where are the blind spots? How can we fix them? And how can we get better? And more importantly, how can we get you as an entrepreneur more free time. So you can focus on the things you want to in the business you have for growth and scale? Or just to get some time back in your life?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, one of the things I have found is, you know, those blind spots are often uncomfortable, right? It’s a little scary lifting up the rock and looking what’s under it. And so why is it that these blind spots actually prevent us from gaining the freedom that we we really longed for?
Michael Ficara
I think like anything else, because they didn’t be easy, and everyone would be doing it right? There has to be some sort of adversity. I think when you do anything great. There’s a challenge. And if we didn’t have those blind spots, it wouldn’t be challenging, and it would be easy. We also wouldn’t have jobs as coaches, right? I mean, those blind spots were there. So in some ways, it’s just a byproduct of success. It’s a byproduct of what you do, you know, I mean, who does not cook unless you make it hot? You know, so it’s really you need that heat. You need those blind spots to be successful. And it’s the byproduct of doing something different doing something challenging.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. You talk in a lot of your material about this idea of entrepreneurial cliches that hold us back. I was wondering if you could kind of dive into that. What are some of the biggest entrepreneurial cliches that we buy? We don’t even know we’re buying.
Michael Ficara
My favorite one is your network is your net worth. Because I think a lot of people are just there. They’re either groupies or they’re in an entourage. Your network is your net worth only if you know how to work it only if you know how to communicate and leverage and if you’re in the right network. You know, there’s some truth to that proximity. Success means you’re successful, but there’s a lot of people that go around and I think they they attend all the convention they attend all the Given events, they attend all the networking things, but they don’t put any effort into the skills or implementing what they learned. And they’re really just a groupie, or they’re in an entourage. So to me, that’s, that’s one of the biggest ones that I very often tell people they need to focus on. I think the other one is that you have to hustle and grind to be successful, that it’s a 24/7 thing that you have to give it, give it your all, to be great. You know what, some people do have to do that, but not everybody. And you have to define what greatness is, I think the the hustle and grind culture. I mean, it’s nothing new. Now. I think now everyone’s like, wait a second, that doesn’t make sense anymore. But those will be two of my probably biggest ones that I throw out there for people.
Scott Ritzheimer
And so what’s the alternative truth? Because, you know, like you mentioned, there’s, there’s some truth in each of those, what’s the better kind of framing for us as entrepreneurs to understand either how to leverage our network or even how to leverage our own time and energy?
Michael Ficara
You know, I think, and it’s a cliche word we’re using right now to I think, but I think there’s then someone phrase it differently, which is they’re using the word credibility. I think credibility, authenticity. Like I said, it’s more of a cliche word, but I think credibility, authenticity and passion are really the three biggest things if you have those. And you interact with people in that way, not what’s in it for me, well, what’s in it for them? And saying, how can you help people and how can you do things? Like I said, I think I’ve referred more people business and have referred me and that’s okay. The ratio is probably one to 100. But everybody knows that, like, oh, Mike, the guy that’s got a guy. So like, people know, to come to me for that. So I’m okay with that, where most people are like, well, I’d like to put a referral agreement in place so that this way, if we do something together, that we each get paid. Like if I think you’re good at something, I’m gonna send someone you wait, you don’t gotta pay me. You wanna take me out to dinner? Great. I’m not gonna say no. But on the same hand, I don’t think you can always be looking at what’s in it for me, you know, what’s the win win? If you give, the more you give, the more you get?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, I had a guy early in my, my career as a coach, it was a coach had been around for a really long time. He said, Scott, you cannot outgive the market. And it was just such timely advice for me. And I couldn’t agree more. So let’s go after this, this kind of hustle and grind thing because I hear it a lot. And and again, it’s one of those things that there is a little bit of truth to it. There are stories out there of the person who hustled and who you grounded out you like and you mentioned, there’s some people who have to do that. And, and so, as entrepreneurs, though, I think there’s a heightened tension, especially post COVID, of like balancing work and life even more than it used to be right, that used to be something that was kind of like reserved for employees, you know, they they kind of had to do it. And that for entrepreneurs is just like work is my life. But now I feel that changing, I see it changing. How do we do that? How do we know when Yes, you have to hustle grind? You have to put in the effort. But also how do we know when it’s time to look at it another way?
Michael Ficara
Yeah, you know, and I love the guys that question asked a similar question on my podcast all the time, when I have people on, it’s like, you know, that picture of the guy digging for diamonds, right? And there’s the one that that gives up, he was right there and turned around the one guy that kept on going so but there’s a lot of context behind that picture. That’s not being answered. I think to even the guy that hits the diamond is on the bottom, like we don’t know, if everything fell down on top of him. We don’t know, he may got there and not got out to which that could be the whole other issue. So I think it’s it’s really a matter of and sorry, my dogs barking. It’s really a matter of, you know, are you doing this for the right reasons? Like there’s always going to have to be sacrifice, right? And I think if you go into things beforehand, what am I willing to sacrifice, right? So like if you know, hey, I’m willing to sacrifice time with my family, or hey, I’m willing to sacrifice, you know, money or whatever it is. The willingness to sacrifice, it makes the hustling grind. Great. But when you start to get into sacrificing things that you didn’t want to sacrifice, that’s where I think you’ve gone too far. And you’ve gone in the wrong direction.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah. Another thing that I saw a lot of as I was looking at some of your work was this idea of both strategy and systems of this, the US kind of have to approach it from both sides. Where would you say, you know, the business owners that you’re working with? Where are they getting stuck strategically?
Michael Ficara
A lot of, you know, a lot of times it’s in our own head. I think it’s in our own head or our own minds. We’re getting stuck in the process of a what, what am I needed to do? No one could do it as good. I mean, the biggest thing you hear is, no one could do it as good as me. You know, no one could do it as good as me. And look, I’m Italian, I love being Italian. And I will tell you, there’s very few Italian restaurants you go to the cook a meal as good as my wife does. Doesn’t mean though, but on the nights my wife doesn’t want to cook, we still go out for Italian because she doesn’t have to do the work, right? And we see that time and we get a different experience. It’s a gift to her. So I think it’s it’s looking at, you know, where a lot of entrepreneurs I think, say, hey, I need to do this, only I can do this. And that’s where they fail. They need to be able to say, Okay, I’m gonna give this to Person X, and it doesn’t mean that they do a bad job, but you got to be okay. Sometimes it’s 70 or 80%.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, it’s so true. How do You know that because I think what makes it so challenging is 50% doesn’t cut it, right? Maybe 70 80% does. And one of the things that I’ve found is, especially early in our entrepreneurial journey, we get very good at going by our gut using ourselves as the as the kind of starting point. And if I would do it that way, then it works. But now we bring in other folks, and they’re not doing it the way that we do. So how do we know if they’ve been doing it that way is bad, or them doing it that way is just different.
Michael Ficara
You don’t. You don’t until you try. And I think the hardest thing is trying, you know, because yes, you may give it to someone, and they may not do a good job. And then you may have to be like, wait a second, I gave it the person X, and they didn’t do it, right. So let me give it to person y, or let me give him Person B. And then each time you do it, though, you’re gonna learn what’s right and what’s wrong. If you only put it with yourself, the failure then comes in, you can only correct yourself and who’s who’s who’s managing and guiding you. You know what I mean? And you may think you’re doing it the best, but you’re really not. But until you see someone else do it, you may be able to see the flaws. And and once again, it’s putting it on the outside thing. And this could be simple things, right? I think a lot of times, entrepreneurs are so scared to do it. Okay, let’s look at the one thing you just don’t like to do. I mean, could be something as simple as like, cleaning the office, right? Like the the likelihood I hate it. So I hire a cleaning person to do it, you know, all that’s gonna call them Yeah, but if it’s off your plate, it’s a half an hour, you get back at night to do something else to make something else that you want to do better. So it doesn’t always have to be to the biggest task, or the biggest thing if you’re if you’re focused on product, stay focused on product, you know, and then outsource payroll, someone should be doing your payroll. And they may not do it as good as you but I mean, some things are easy to get people do I think it’s just like having a kid right? You got to let them do like the first thing you know, you gotta crawl, walk run. But I think if you can keep it in that context, that’s where you win.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, that’s so true. So let’s look at the other side of this then with, with systems. And I mean, you and I know that your typical entrepreneur visionary leader systems are like, me, it’s like, it’s almost a four letter word, it just happens to have too many letters in it. And that’s part of the problem as well, right? It’s just, it feels complicated. It feels slow, it feels unnecessary. Why are systems such a big part of your client success?
Michael Ficara
I mean, I think it goes back to what you just kind of asked in the earlier question, you know, how do you know what to hand off? How do you know what you got to give away? If there’s a system, you can then judge whether or not it’s working? It’s not a pass fail situation? Like, you know, I said early on, I wasn’t good at school. Why? Because it was one of them. It was a pass fail situation, right? It was like you did something and you got a great entrepreneurships not like that entrepreneurship is a process. And it there’s not a system, there’s not a process. There’s just there’s just task after task after task after task. The last thing to do, if there’s a process, you’re able to judge what’s working, what’s not working, you’re able to see where things are going. You know, I see this a lot with social media, people say, Well, I’m posting to social media, and I’m putting this up and that up and it’s not working. I’m like, oh, what’s your process for posting? Well, I go when I have time, and I make a video and I put all this effort into it. And I posted on my whole hearts, and then it gets like three likes and like, on a process. That’s an emotion, right, like emotions can get our will misguide you a process takes the emotion out of it. And lets you measure whether or not things are working.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, so true. So we’ve already covered is remarkable, actually, when you look at how much ground we’ve covered in this, but I want to kind of pull it all together with a question I like to ask all my guests. And that’s what’s the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody listening today knew?
Michael Ficara
It’s not that hard. It’s not that hard
Scott Ritzheimer
Keep going Keep going. There’s gold in there.
Michael Ficara
I like to let that sit for a little because when we were like, Why, like it really isn’t, you know, and I remember being a kid think about how hard it was gonna be to be an adult. And, you know, someone, I got asked this question twice in the last month, you know, tell me what I do. I work with entrepreneurs, I haven’t grow and scale their business. And they’re like, Well, what makes a business successful, and I’m like, it’s the people that are passionate about what they do. And the reason why that’s so important is if you’re passionate about what you do, and you love what you do, when you get punched in the face, it’s not gonna hurt, you’re okay with it. You know, when when something goes wrong, you’re able to handle it in a non emotional way because you love what you do. And more importantly, it makes the wins feel like a win and not an escape. When people are involved in a business. And they think it’s hard and they stress out about everything and they’re over it. The wins just seemed like a momentary escape from the stress. And the losses feel like the norm. And then you get used to being a loser because all you’re doing is losing because you think entrepreneurial, supposed to be stressful. Not that hard. If you got a good idea, you got something you love, and people are interested in it. It’s not our I can’t tell you how many business owners I know that tricked into a million dollar business. Well, I just thought it was a good idea to start selling something online. I’m making a shit ton of money. You know, I have another client, you know, she was a teacher, you know, left the classroom every time she had a baby. And each time she was away they were like, Hey, where’s your lessons? We could do this and she’s like, Should we give it to them? Give them finally about the fourth baby. She’s like, Wait a second. I got something here should 100 bucks and put all their lessons in a binder sold for 200 bucks. I made another binder made another binder and turn it into a million dollar company. So it’s just the passion of simplicity and the fact that it’s not that hard, it’s easy. There’s gonna be hard times there’s gonna be hard work. But it’s not that hard. And it’s fun. And it’s fun.
Scott Ritzheimer
I think one of the big tragedies for entrepreneurs of the English language is that that simple means so many different things, right? Simple can mean, you know, hard or easy, you know, could be the easy side, it could also mean simple or complex. And there’s a lot about entrepreneurs, and it’s just playing harder, getting punched in the face is hard. It’s not a fun, but it’s not, it’s not hard to understand. And when we started to convolute, those two, and we tried to make it complicated, complicated and complex, so we don’t get hit in the face, I think that’s where we started running in trouble. And I love the point that you made there, it’s like, if you have the passion, that’s what makes it worth it. It’s not always about avoiding every hit, it’s about knowing why a couple of hits are worth it, and how to roll through the next one.
Michael Ficara
And I’ll add something to that, because I love that you said that, you know, there’s people who love getting punched in the face and do it professionally. So if you love something enough, you’ll do it professionally. I mean, boxers, MMA fighters, they punch in the face professionally, and they keep going after it. They love doing it. So I mean, that’s that we’re really shows how great passion is.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s so true. It’s so true. All right, I’ve got another question. And I want to make sure folks know how they can get in touch with you and get a copy of your book. But before we get there, I’m going to have you take off your coach hat for a moment put on your CEO hat kind of jumped down into the ring with the rest of us and will tell us what’s the next stage of growth look like for you as a leader? And what challenges will you have to overcome to get there?
Michael Ficara
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, like any business, things are moving fast right now. And I think with with technology with the way things are changing, but we’ve gotten used to that. So for me, it’s looking at, hey, what’s what’s the next thing that I can integrate? I like the idea of bringing more people. But for me on a personal note, as my children get older, and they’re starting to grow, it’s how can I free up more of my time, I’m really looking at how can I work less? I’m not worried about making more money for me as a CEO. And I know it’s once again, this is one of those contrary things I’m looking at. How do I offload more things that I’m doing to other people and expand my business in a way that I could spend more time with my kids, because it’s a finite window. There’s a great book called 18 summers. And I want to make sure that I’m there for as many as I can with my kids. So that that is the next thing for me as a CEO. Not really business minded in the sense, but but a little more personal.
Scott Ritzheimer
No that’s great. I love it. I love that you’re able to share that because it’s such an important thing. I’m actually working with a client right now who, who just kind of hit that hard, right? She realized, like, I’ve worked all this time to make money, and I have the money. And now Now what do I want? You know, it’s like More money’s not really that interesting to me. And yeah, it’s very interesting how success brings its own new set of challenges, right? How before, it’s kind of like, that’s, that’s kind of defined for us, right? You know, it’s, I need this sale to break even, you know, and then we get the test kind of like, well, why do I want the next one? Do I really want the next one? Or are there other things in life that are important as well? So again, I love that you were able to bring that up. I hope you have a fantastic summer with your kids. But Okay, so last question is just how can how can folks find more out about what you do? How can they get a copy of your book?
Michael Ficara
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Um, if you’re interested, just very simple. My name mikeficara.com. That’ll take you to my website. There’s links to my social media. There’s links to buy my book. I’m Mike Ficara, on all social media platforms. So if you just type that in and you should be able to find me I’ll either be smoking a cigar or holding my book up one of the two.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, fantastic Well, Mike just a privilege having you on the show an honor to get to spend some time with you. And for those of you who are listening, you know your time and attention in the world to us. We got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Michael Ficara
Mike Ficara is a seasoned entrepreneur and consultant. His core focus is on the growth and scaling strategies for businesses of any size. Mike has had the opportunity to work in a variety of industries over his career going from the classroom to the boardroom. He has taken existing businesses and allowed them to see massive growth and stability through a variety of techniques, consulting for small and large companies such as NEC, Nestle, Brand Ethos, and Top Score Writing among others. Mike is the author of Like Socks On A Rooster and hosts The Start Down Podcast and also the 3 Points Podcast with his son Anthony.
Want to learn more about Michael Ficara’s work at The MAGS Group, LLC? Check out his website at https://mikeficara.com/
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