Episode 277 with Paul Clewell: Navigating Business with Purpose and Passion

Join me on this episode of the Ready Ed podcast as I chat with guest Paul Clewell,  who is the CSO of 3F Management, CEO of SendBuzz, and an Elite Revenue Coach and Venture Capitalist. Listen in as we discuss the importance of mindset in running a small business, how emotional attachment impacts business decisions, strategies to get clear on your business purpose and audience, and the role of self-awareness and authenticity in leadership. 

GUEST RESOURCES

Paul Clewell is a dynamic, results-driven executive with a passion for driving revenue growth. With a proven track record of success in diverse industries, he excels in leading teams through transformative change and guiding organizations to expand their market reach. His entrepreneurial spirit and strategic acumen have enabled him to build strong relationships with key industry leaders, fostering innovation and achieving remarkable business outcomes.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulclewell22

https://3fmanagement.com 

https://x.com/Catch22now

https://www.instagram.com/paul_clewell21

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Transcript

Episode 277 with Paul Clewell: Navigating Business with Purpose and Passion

Transcribed by Descript

Erin Marcus: All right, welcome, welcome to this episode of the Ready Ed podcast. I'm excited about my guest today, Paul Clewell. Here's the problem that Paul and I are going to have. How do we have this conversation without sounding like the old people screaming, get off my grass? Little bit, but I'm excited to share.

Erin Marcus: I'm a big fan of lessening people's learning curves. And I think that's what you and I hope to do today. So before we get into that, why don't you tell everyone who you are and what you do? 

Paul Clewell: Yeah. Thank you, Erin. I appreciate it so much. Thank you for the intro. So I am I refer to myself as the unapologetic.

Paul Clewell: Unapologetic savage. I don't mean that in a bravado way at all. But what I've learned, as you just indicated, with our years of wisdom and years of business experience and trials and tribulations and failures and successes I just, I've gotten to a place where I like to speak freely with good intention.

Paul Clewell: So I'm not, when I say I'm unapologetic. Unapologetic savage. Really what it means is I I'm comfortable with who I am because I've learned a lot about myself over the years. I've discovered my true authentic self and I want to share that with the world only because it's truth.

Paul Clewell: Some like it, some don't and that's okay. So I have spent the last, since 2013, I've been a serial entrepreneur. I currently work with Derek Fay at 3F Management, which is a venture capital and management consulting firm. So we come alongside small and medium sized businesses to help them grow, scale, and ultimately exit their business.

Paul Clewell: And as as a business owner, for those listening that are also business owners, they know the pain that I'm about to share, and that is sometimes as a business owner, our emotional attachment to our business, which is typically strong Doesn't always equate or come alongside the practicality of what we're trying to accomplish Because running a small business is freaking hard, right?

Paul Clewell: And it can be a lonely place So we come alongside to a lot, you know enable small businesses to understand that They're not alone. There are experts who care about their success and their growth. And I have a heart for that. And I always share a lot with the younger crowd. Typically. I hate that I even have to say younger these days, cause I wish I was still part of that group, but small bit.

Paul Clewell: I have such a small business, small such a heart for small business because Think about how inconvenient our lives would be without the success of small business Think about how inconvenient your day would be without your dry cleaners without your coffee shop Without your lawn care service without your home Cleaning service without your pizza shop and your sub shop and imagine all that stuff goes away And think about how much we actually rely on those people who literally have, in many cases, are putting their family's livelihood and survival on the line every day to make pizza or whatever that thing is, right?

Paul Clewell: So I have a heart for that. And 

Erin Marcus: it's the coverage is all in the news is always about big business and corporate this and corporate that. But that's not, small business actually employees. So many more people than these corporations. The backbone in this country is small business. 

Paul Clewell: It's small business.

Paul Clewell: I think there are 30 36, 000? 300 36 million? Maybe is the number? 36 million small businesses in the United States, of which 96 percent of them do less than 3 million a year. a year in revenue, right? And in that percent, there's only 1 percent that's actually doing 3 million. So these are, it's the lifeblood of our economy, right?

Paul Clewell: They employ 67 percent of America. 

Erin Marcus: And it's hard, going back to a couple of things that you said, it's hard to be driven by emotion. Because I think you have to, to some extent be driven by an emotional attachment to creating the outcome you're trying to create in your business and yet not being attached to it in such a way, I don't have kids.

Erin Marcus: I know you do. I think it's not dissimilar where you have to give everything you can and yet let them fly. And it's, but that balances everything because without some level of detachment. We hold on way too tight to stuff that doesn't work. We hold on way too tight, way too long to all sorts of problems that don't We just make our lives harder.

Paul Clewell: And I agree with that. And I think holding on too tight, one of the key elements of where people make the mistake is they hold on too tight to the notion of how much money They want their small business to make. So I talked to that. And here's what I mean by that. I talked to small businesses every day and I'll ask that owner, what are your goals?

Paul Clewell: What are you trying to get to? What are your challenges? And they all almost the ones that are struggling all have something in common. They all say, I want to get to some level of revenue within a certain amount of time, right? So for example, I want to get to 3 million in 18 months. And then as we start to unwrap that, right?

Paul Clewell: When you get motivated by just the money and you lose sight of number one, what is your purpose? And number two, who are you trying to serve? So if those two, if those things aren't aligned, because if your purpose is, I just want to make money and I'll serve anybody who wants to buy my product or service, You are going to fail in very short order, right?

Paul Clewell: And so I find myself in a lot of conversations around, let's get really clear on what is your purpose for your business? Why are you doing this? 

Erin Marcus: Why are you even doing this? 

Paul Clewell: Number two, who are you trying to serve? If we can get clarity and intentionality around those two things, the bank account will take care of itself.

Paul Clewell: And we see that over and over and over again. 

Erin Marcus: And I think it's hard, and I agree with you 100 percent in what I, two sides to this that I see. Number one, one of the things that will screw up every single decision you make, Is desperation when you are desperate for the sale right when you're in a financial situation that is just caught wreaking havoc.

Erin Marcus: All you can see is the dollar signs or the lack thereof, and you'll make them so many bad decisions. Yeah, but the other piece is. We're taught that's the definition of success, but there's no actual information about it. In the coaching world, one of my mentors, we used to joke around all the time about people who would go out there and say they have a six figure business.

Erin Marcus: They have a seven figure business. They had a half million dollar business. Yeah, but it costs you that plus 10 percent to get there. So top line revenue is almost a vanity metric. 

Paul Clewell: Yes. It's a vanity metric to those who don't even understand what top line revenue means. And you mentioned a key word there and that's the word desperate.

Paul Clewell: So I tapped into human psychology of business. What makes people tick? When you get into a desperate mode. The very first symptom of that shows itself in the form of a scarcity mindset, 

Erin Marcus: right? 

Paul Clewell: So when you get desperate, you get this scarcity mindset where you have to hang on to the little that you have, right?

Paul Clewell: And as a result of that downstream further is you start making bad decisions. So your death, you feel desperate, and as a result, you get this scarcity mindset where you have to protect your little tiny kingdom, and then as a result of that, you start making rash, just rash, uninformed decisions, and it sets you and your small business into a tailspin, most times that you can't recover from, right?

Paul Clewell: And 

Erin Marcus: one, absolutely, one of the things that I try to remind myself I'm always like, okay, I get it. I get it. It makes sense what you're saying. But when you're in that situation, it's hard to remember what do you do? And one of the things that I've learned to say to myself, Don't treat a temporary problem as a permanent situation.

Erin Marcus: Don't sacrifice long term for a short term temporary problem. 

Paul Clewell: Yes.

Erin Marcus: It doesn't always work. But I try. 

Paul Clewell: I would make that, make sure that's in quotes and trademarked because that is profound wisdom. 

Erin Marcus: For your 

Paul Clewell: audience, Aaron just dropped a freaking okay. 

Erin Marcus: It comes from me trying to dig myself out of my own, right? That's where most of this comes from. But it's so true.

Erin Marcus: We do, I think that's a human, neuroscience thing. Everything humans think very all or nothing. 

Paul Clewell: Yes. And 

Erin Marcus: everything's just temporary. 

Paul Clewell: Yes. Everything is temporary. And we are, so as a race or as a species, we are very unforgiving of ourselves. 

Erin Marcus: Oh, yes. 

Paul Clewell: So we just we don't give ourselves enough credit for the things we do well, and we over overemphasize the things we're not doing so well.

Paul Clewell: And we tend to live in that space. And so we need to learn as individuals to be a little bit more forgiving of ourselves and give ourselves some freaking credit for the things we do well. Cause if you really wrote them down, if you took stock in that, and if you spent the time to actually sit down and reflect and write it down, you could come up with a shit ton of a list of all the things you're doing well.

Erin Marcus: And so I know for me when I'm having a moment or I'm trying to get through something, one of the practices I'll go back to right away is the morning starts with the gratitude journal and the end of the workday starts with wins. Like literally writing them down. What were at least three wins today? And yes, like everyone else, there have been days where pants is a win.

Erin Marcus: Yeah. Gotta take what you can get, right? 

Paul Clewell: Yeah, absolutely. And I agree, sometimes the wins are small. Sometimes they feel insignificant, but the psychological effect they have on you are more profound than you believe or that what that you feel. And I do the same, I like to say, here it's 11, 1120 Eastern time, and I'm still holding coffee, which I normally not.

Paul Clewell: For me, it's the same thing. I may be finished with my second cup of coffee at eight 30 in the morning. And I go brush my teeth to get coffee taste out of my mouth. That's a win. That's a that's a win because now I can get out. I can carry out with my next meeting in the confidence that I have fresh breath, right?

Paul Clewell: But I just don't think at the end of the day, we just don't give ourselves enough credit. And we need to practice that skill because it's a, it's an invaluable skill that we all need to have. 

Erin Marcus: So one of the things that we were talking about, we were talking about Before we hit record here that I really want to revisit because it's had a profound impact in my business and in my life, even in the last 12 months, as I really wrought my head around it is.

Erin Marcus: This idea of hard work. And I get real nervous talking about this because I don't want anyone to ever say Aaron said it should all be easy and there's no work involved. Because that's not what I mean. But the idea that when we were both younger, hard was a badge of honor. 

Paul Clewell: Yes. 

Erin Marcus: And now, I don't want to do things that are hard.

Erin Marcus: I want to do things, not because I don't want to work, hard. Yeah, 

Paul Clewell: Yeah. I think that, and I agree with you, and again, this is a wisdom thing, without aging, or disclosing our age, which we now found is the same age. 

Erin Marcus: Wait, when's your birthday? It's 

Paul Clewell: still super young. It's still, 

Erin Marcus: when's your, what's your birthday?

Paul Clewell: Compared to Yoda and Moses, it's still super 

Erin Marcus: young. I'm in April, when's your birthday? 

Paul Clewell: I'm December. 

Erin Marcus: Okay, so I've got you, Biley. But 

Paul Clewell: you are the elder statue. Oh, no, 

Erin Marcus: wait, you might be ahead of me. If we're the same age, I just Seventy. It's you. 

Paul Clewell: Yes, I'm December of 69. Which sounds awful, because it just adds me to a whole other decade of being on the earth, and it's awful.

Paul Clewell: Anyway, back to what you were saying about hard, hard work. I forgot what we were even saying. 

Erin Marcus: But it used to be this badge of honor. Yeah, 

Paul Clewell: the badge of honor, so I think hard work we, not you and I, but we generally, especially in business, we associate hard work with impact, right? And we associate something that's easy as, eh, it's easy.

Paul Clewell: Therefore it probably isn't going to make any waves or have an impact on anybody else. And that is such a fallacy because hard work is not necessarily associated with impact. So like you, it was what we were talking about off camera. Impact doesn't have anything to do with ease of the lift or difficulty of the lift.

Paul Clewell: So if you focus on what am I engaging in that has impact on other people, or can it really affect change? That's where I focus on how I decide what I'm going to undertake and what I'm not. Because it's not really about is it easy, is it hard? And you, I think you use the word you're scared to use the talk about hard work, right?

Paul Clewell: Because of how people may interpret what you've said. I use a different word. I'm hesitant to talk about it. So it's the same vein as you, and I'm hesitant because. We've all heard that phrase, work harder, not smarter or work smarter, not harder. I get it backwards. But, and so that is so cliche because we've heard it so much, but there's truth in it for sure.

Paul Clewell: There's no doubt that whatever you undertake, whether it's easy or whether it's hard has nothing to do with how hard or how enthusiastic you approach it. 

Erin Marcus: And one of the examples that helped me reframe this in my head is if you really look at it, in, if you look at all the different jobs people do, the harder the job, from an effort standpoint, it's usually lower paid.

Erin Marcus: If you look at mining, if you look at waitressing, like to me that's one of the hardest jobs you could do as a server in a restaurant. If you look at farm hands, That is labor. 

Paul Clewell: Yes, it's labor. And I, so again, back in the younger, more dumber years, I view, I used to view hard as the level of hard for me as an individual, my physical effort, right?

Paul Clewell: My physical effort, what do I have to bring to bear to make, to get the outcome I'm looking for? How hard is that going to be? But it was all about my time, trading my time. 

Erin Marcus: I think time was my big thing. Yeah. I used to think hard, working hard meant working a lot. 

Paul Clewell: Because if someone said, this is going to be hard work, you look at it and you go, do you realize how much time this is going to take?

Paul Clewell: So again, to me, it's a wrong association because now, again, being wiser when I, if I think something is hard, it's in the sense of how much impact is this going to have? That's the lift, right? It's not how much effort do I physically have to put into this. It's how hard is it going to be to touch the lives of the number of people we want to go touch, whatever, based on whatever that project is or whatever that initiative is.

Paul Clewell: If you and I said, Hey, we we want to go touch a million people, change the lives of a million people. We would sit here and we'd go, shit, that's going to be hard. Not hard, meaning I have to trade my time for dollars, but just hard and how am I going to get out and get the outreach to do those.

Paul Clewell: So it's just how you, it's how you 

Erin Marcus: define it. 

Paul Clewell: How you define it. Yeah. And 

Erin Marcus: to me now, like my phases have been, if it were easy, everyone would do it. Yeah. Like the old school version. And then I learned about this idea of what if it were easy, As in, I get to choose if it's easy or not because it's just a perspective.

Erin Marcus: And I liked that for a minute, but that was still mind tricks. When I was, when someone was trying to say, Oh easy is just a perspective. You can, if you believe it's easy, then it's easy. Yeah. But now I've got to force myself into changing my belief, which is not easy to do. For me, the better approach is if I'm so motivated by what I'm getting to do and the outcome I'm trying to create, then it's all easy.

Erin Marcus: Cause I'm just so damn excited. 

Paul Clewell: That's it. That's what we were referring to earlier, if you have small children and you wake them up at four o'clock in the morning and you tell them they've got to go grab a garbage bag and pick garbage up on the street, you probably can't get kids out of bed at four o'clock in the morning.

Erin Marcus: You couldn't get me out of bed at four o'clock in the morning for 

Paul Clewell: that. To our point, if you said, hey, wake them up at four o'clock in the morning, say, hey, get in the car, we're going to Disney. You have a higher likelihood of getting people to do what you do. And I think the easy part of it, if it's easy, everyone would do it.

Paul Clewell: We've all heard that. And again, to me, that sounds so cliche, because I haven't added on, I've added to that phrase. And I say, if it's easy, everyone would do it, but can we do it better? 

Erin Marcus: Can you do it better? And what I've also learned is, The hard work is internal, not external. Absolutely. The hard work, now when I say, okay, I have to, it's not harder, it's scarier work.

Erin Marcus: That's where I can make my leaps forward, is when I can do the internal work that gives me the courage. gives me whatever the belief, the faith, the courage, whatever word you want to use to do something that is the next level, pushes my boundaries. That's the hard work it takes. 

Paul Clewell: It is the hard work.

Paul Clewell: And you use that word belief, which is so interesting because whole books have been written on this, right? Because, it's our beliefs that frame and dictate our habits. And then it's those habits that dictate and frame the results we're going to get. So it all starts with that internal piece, right?

Paul Clewell: Do I have the right mindset? Do I have the confidence in myself? Do I have the self awareness that I need? All of those things, right? And they, and it's just a daisy chain, right? You gotta start at the source of the stream, right? You can't start midstream because you've forgotten a bunch of stuff up here, right?

Paul Clewell: Yeah. And one 

Erin Marcus: other, one other thing I think is so interesting, if you, I don't know if this is good news or bad news. We talked about 3 million business. We talked, you can, maybe you have a 10 million business. Maybe you have a 75, 000 business problems. The same problem,

Erin Marcus: the money, some of the numbers have bigger zeros after them, but the limiting beliefs are the same. Oh, wait, like people, this is, it goes back to your point. When you said If the only thing you have is a goal of what you want, top line revenue, it's not going to solve anything because it doesn't take into account the limiting beliefs that have you stuck at 50k, 100k, 500k, 2.

Erin Marcus: 5 million. It's the same internal problem. You just think that money solves it and it doesn't. 

Paul Clewell: Let's talk about the ideal example of that is a celebrity or a sports figure who has made, ubers of millions of dollars and all of a sudden we hear on the news that they're found dead in a bathtub from an overdose.

Paul Clewell: It happens all the time. And it's because they think that I've hit the big time. I've made a lot of money. Therefore, I'm, I should be happy now. 

Paul Clewell: And the zeros at the end of the bank account have nothing to do with your internalization of your own self awareness. How what drives joy?

Paul Clewell: deep rooted joy in who you are as a person, and they have no self awareness, especially after they leave what they've been good at, right? So they play a sport, they make a bunch of money, they now exit the sport, but to that individual, that sport was their identity. It was their identity. The 

Erin Marcus: identity, right?

Erin Marcus: What you're talking about is your identity. 

Paul Clewell: Correct. 

Erin Marcus: And It's so interesting to me that there is just a massive amount of external evidence. supporting everything we've been saying. And yet, the neuroscience the negative bias our brain has to have to keep us alive. The thing I say about all this stuff is, give yourself a break, but don't let yourself off the hook.

Erin Marcus: You are up against neuroscience here. Even if you take the spirituality piece out of it, you are up against neuroscience. This is how your brain keeps you alive. Give yourself a break. This shit's hard. But don't let yourself There's so much, if there's so much external evidence supporting everything we've been saying, why are so many people stuck?

Paul Clewell: That's exactly right. And I don't have an answer for that, but I will, if you 

Erin Marcus: had the, when you get your crystal ball, let me know. Cause that's, 

Paul Clewell: but I will contribute to what you just said. And that is the neuroscience and the brain and the way the brain works, right? Our brain is designed, as you said, to keep us in survival mode, which is why The vast majority of people choose not to take risk, which is why the vast majority of people choose to live a life of mediocrity and of being average because the brain is telling us that is a safe place.

Paul Clewell: It's safe to stay in your comfort zone to stay out of danger, so let me keep you here. So it's that constant battle with your brain, that's why mindset is such a huge thing now, right? It's convincing ourself that average is safe. Can be a very dangerous place, even though our brain is telling us that it's a safe place.

Paul Clewell: And we all, we've all heard it, get uncomfortable being comfortable, or get comfortable being uncomfortable 

Erin Marcus: and staying uncomfortable. And it's not a fixable thing. You state, you have to learn to stay there. 

Paul Clewell: And it's the only place where growth happens both personally and professionally.

Paul Clewell: Growth doesn't happen in average and in that safe zone, right? Because we build walls around us, right? We, cause we all have fears, right? Fear of abandonment, fear of failure, fear of judgment, fear of failure, like all those things, and we build up these walls around us, but our brain says, Thank you. This is a safe place.

Paul Clewell: Let's just stay here, 

Erin Marcus: even if we hate it, 

Paul Clewell: even if we hate it. We know there's more. We know we're made for more. We know we have more potential, but we won't break down the walls that we ourselves created. And we know how to break the down if we wanted to, because it's just, it's too easy to just sit here in my beach chair with my walls around me and stay average.

Paul Clewell: It feels good in the moment, but it's a drug that will kill. 

Erin Marcus: So what do what do you tell people, like, where do you start if you if we've gotten through to people and they, between this and other conversations are like, all right, that's, what's going on here. Where do you tell people to start working on stepping out of that comfort zone.

Paul Clewell: That's a great question. That's a really good question. So like in my coaching. Business that, and that's why I do both. I work in management consulting with a team, but I also do my own individual coaching and it's, but it's all with business owners, right? It's not outside of that niche.

Erin Marcus: We're a special group of people. 

Paul Clewell: Oddly colored feathers. But I always start with a mindset piece, right? And again, and here's why I say that I can coach you as a business owner all day long of all the things you need to do. And not only that, I can show you how to do those things. Cause that's a big differentiator between for example, between consulting and coaching, a consultant will trade time for dollars and tell you what you need to go do.

Paul Clewell: And that's fine. But then when you show up, when you're on your own again, you go okay. I. I know what I need to do. I just don't know how to go do it. That's the difference between being a coach and a consultant. So a coach will tell you what you need to do, but also come alongside you and show you how to do it.

Paul Clewell: But even that doesn't work and never will work. If I can't get your mind right first, I need to get your mind right around your attitude towards money. I need to get your mind right about your self awareness and what you're trying to accomplish. I need to get your mind right about Are you playing imposter?

Paul Clewell: Or can, how do we get to the bottom of who is your true authentic self? Because it's only then can you truly give of who you were meant to be to other people. You can't, if you're, if you, we all suffer from imposter syndrome at some point in time, but if you can't be your authentic self, you cannot serve other people.

Paul Clewell: So we really get into mindset on who are you? Who are you really? Let me strip down those barriers because I want to see the real you. Because it's then and only then, because I'm going to give you the real me, whether you like it or not, and you can't serve and be who you were meant to be as it relates to giving to other people until you can first understand who you really are.

Paul Clewell: So the business stuff, I know a lot of things. There are a lot of people who know a lot more than me, but my approach is I start with. We have to get you right and your mindset right as a business owner And being comfortable in your own skin before we talk about your business at all Because if you're not if you're not right with yourself, it doesn't matter what I share with you About how to scale and grow your business.

Paul Clewell: It's not going to matter if I can't get you my your mind, right? 

Erin Marcus: And I think that's one of the reasons that you and I connected so quickly. The plan doesn't matter if you can't do the plan. And I've had a couple situations and I catch them, but every now and then I miss one where, and I feel like, again, because I understand what we're up against and all of this, and we've been through it it's all the empathy in the world, but I watch people by course after course, I watch people spend so much effort on what to do.

Erin Marcus: And then get disappointed, frustrated, angry, when it doesn't solve the problem of the mind. You, all the plans in the world will not solve the problem of the internal work. 

Paul Clewell: Correct. And I love that you just said that. And because, and I know you do some speaking and are looking for more of that as am I.

Paul Clewell: So I do a lot of keynote talks, if you will, as well to business owners. And and as I'm one of several guest speakers, that are going to be introduced and be on stage. And as I stand in the back of these venues and I watch speakers before me or speakers after me, I'm like, Who at the end of their talk, they're pitching something, which is fine.

Paul Clewell: Then you see a bunch of people go to the back of the room and they sign up and they drop their credit card for 20 grand. This, look, those are all great things. I'm not opposed to any of those things. I personally do not do that when I'm on stage. I don't pitch somebody a product or a service that I'm offering to anybody.

Paul Clewell: And it's because of exactly what you just said. I don't feel good. Okay. In being able to take somebody's money, especially if it's thousands of dollars, if I am not able to connect with them on a one on one personal level, right? So a lot of people would sign up for a course, for example and they know that they're going to log in and they join their Facebook group and all this stuff, and they get on a call once in a week and they're on the call with 50 other people.

Paul Clewell: I just don't think you can get to know somebody. and know what their intentions are and how to help them in that one to many environment. I'm not saying it's bad. For me, it just doesn't work. It depends 

Erin Marcus: on what you're trying to do, right? 

Paul Clewell: For me, it's about a business owner comes to me and said, dude, you resonate with me.

Paul Clewell: We have a lot in common. Will you come alongside of me? And I will pay you for that. That's how I operate. 

Erin Marcus: And I, it's so true. I depends on what you want to do. And I agree with you in that when I buy a product. That's I'm looking for a step-by-step on a subject matter, a very specific subject matter. I'm not selling or buying a piece of information to solve all my world's problems.

Erin Marcus: Correct. And I think that's what, I think. That's where I hesitated to call myself a coach for a long time because I saw. This environment filled with people I call they were selling a dream, but with no way for anyone to really do it. Either because they didn't know how to teach people how to do it, they only knew what to do, not how to do it.

Paul Clewell: Or they never did it themselves. 

Erin Marcus: And because they didn't know, and right, it was a completely different Again, now with AI you're going to see more and more of this. It's not hard to come up with a list of what to do. One, two, three, four, five. That's commodity. It is just information. We're past the information age.

Erin Marcus: It's all out there. There's no more secrets. It's all out there, right? But, it's how do you interpret the information and help somebody apply it with their unique strengths and their unique goals. and all the things that they hate doing. And that's where I get frustrated. I call them one size fits all, soon to be obsolete insta tactics.

Erin Marcus: They don't work. There's nothing wrong with the tactic, by the way. 

Paul Clewell: Agreed. 

Erin Marcus: It doesn't work for you and your stage of business and what you love to do. The tactic in and of itself is neutral. It can do amazing things for the right people. 

Paul Clewell: That's why I said, the start when you asked me, where do I start?

Paul Clewell: That's why I start with the mindset because if you go into the back of a room and you bought a 20, 000 coaching packets to, to, for me to coach you, if your mind's not right, you won't matter 20, 000, there's nothing I can do because there's nothing 

Erin Marcus: you can do. When 

Paul Clewell: I come alongside of you as a coach.

Paul Clewell: I want to have, I want to know that together we can create impact, 

Erin Marcus: right? 

Paul Clewell: If you're not ready for that, you just wasted 20 grand. And I don't feel good in taking that money if I can't help you. 

Erin Marcus: No, I totally agree. It's, and there's the other thing for All the coaches and consultants listening. The thing that I also had to learn alongside of that was I'm responsible to people, not for them.

Paul Clewell: Yes. 

Erin Marcus: And right. That was a big one. Now I did. I learned that from Larry Winget was the person who said that to me first. Like I, I'm responsible to show up in my authenticity, to your point, in everything that I know how to do, be of service to the highest level that I can be of service, what you choose to do with that.

Erin Marcus: I have no control over it. And that's hard when you get real excited about other people's success. 

Paul Clewell: But it's also hard as a coach, when you've traveled somewhere to be asked to speak and you have your own small business and you want to drive your own revenue, cause you got your own things to take care of.

Paul Clewell: So there's this dilemma. 

Erin Marcus: Right. 

Paul Clewell: There's a dilemma is am I here for as a charitable speaker just to impart and hopefully somebody walks away with something like, for example, the last I spoke recently in Salt Lake City, and somebody came up to me and said, Hey, Paul, you are really good motivational speaker.

Paul Clewell: And I looked at this person I said, I'm not a motivational speaker, and we got into a brief conversation of you go to those events as a guest, a paid guest or not, whatever you're seeking is what you will find. So like for example in that case, I'm not a motivational speaker. But that person drew motivation from listening to me.

Paul Clewell: Somebody else may be there looking for inspiration and they will find it. Not that I'm trying to do that, but you'll find what you're looking for. Some are there just to grab business nuggets on how do I market better? How do I get my operations under control? They'll find that because that's what they're there looking for.

Paul Clewell: Which brings you back. We brings us back to that point of how do you sell a 30, 000 coaching program? That's a. One size fits all. You can't. Yeah. 

Erin Marcus: It reminds me of, I know you're of the age and we're probably had a job when these were big, those demotivational posters that came out. My favorite, one of my favorite ones is to your point.

Erin Marcus: The only consistent thing in all of your failed relationships is you, right? Whatever you're looking for, that's what you're going to 

Paul Clewell: find. That's it. That is it. No matter where you look, there you are. No matter 

Erin Marcus: where you go, there you are. What is it? It's an island. If you didn't bring it with you, it isn't here, right?

Erin Marcus: Exactly right. I could talk to you all day. Maybe we'll have to have a figure out a way to do round two of this. But if people want to continue this conversation, learn more about you, come see you speak, learn what, how you help them, what's the easiest way for them to find you? 

Paul Clewell: Great. Easiest way. So my Instagram is paul underscore Clewell.

Paul Clewell: 22. I'm always, I'm never hesitant to give my phone number out. People can reach me directly and that is my direct line, which is right here is a 678 595 0039. And you can text me there. You can also find me at 3fmanagement. com. 

Erin Marcus: Awesome. And we'll make sure all the links are in the show notes. So you're just one click away from people.

Erin Marcus: Thanks for hanging out with me and not making me feel old, but making me feel wise. 

Paul Clewell: No, this was fun. This was really fun. Definitely does not feel like a podcast. It feels like we're having a beer. We're just 

Erin Marcus: having a good time. Isn't that the point? And I'm not 

Paul Clewell: going to say it feels like old friends, cause I don't want to even use the word.

Paul Clewell: We're not 

Erin Marcus: even 

Paul Clewell: Old friends, just talking about stuff. 

Erin Marcus: Exactly. Exactly. Love it. Thank you so much. 

Paul Clewell: Appreciate you. Thanks.