The True Meaning Of Financial Freedom With Kirk W. McLaren

Any business owner wants to achieve financial freedom and secure a truly comfortable life, especially in their retirement years. However, this is more than just saving up money. From a much bigger perspective, it is about achieving freedom in every aspect of your life. In this episode, Andy McDowell sits down with Kirk W. McLaren, CEO of Foresight CFO. Together, they discuss how to design a business plan that does not only attract money, but also joy, purpose, spirituality, and long-lasting relationships. Kirk also explains how he helps other people gain financial freedom through a program that focuses on generational wealth building and bringing humanity to the business scene.

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The True Meaning Of Financial Freedom With Kirk W. McLaren

The song that is ringing around in my head this morning is an Elton John song called Freedom. Freedom from a political standpoint is very important but we’re not talking about political freedom in this episode. We’re going to be talking about financial freedom. How is it that we can particularly business leaders or business owners achieve freedom in this world?

We’re not talking about all financial freedom. It’s going to be a big part of our conversation this morning, but to have that sense, that emotional feeling of freedom doesn’t necessarily always mean strictly financial freedom, but we’re going to be talking about it as a huge part of our conversation, but not all of it is financial freedom.

We’ll get into that with our guest in this episode. The Scotsman from the great state of Maryland, Kirk W. McLaren. We both kind of share a little bit of history or heritage being that my family came from Southwest Scotland. Kirk comes from the Highlands. There might be a little Scottish thing going on about the Highlands versus Southwest and Scotch country in our conversation but that’s all well and good.

It’s the good old days. Which plaid was better than the other one? Who could play the pipes better than the other one? We have those battles every fall somewhere in the United States. You could find a park with the Celts getting together and having their battles to keep the tradition going alive. Let me read Kirk’s bio and then we’ll bring him in full-time here

 Hopefully, it will be a great conversation that will keep you engaged. Kirk, we like to call on the show golden nuggets of information that people can use and integrate into their business or their life and get value out of it. Hence the name Generate Your Value. It grows people and businesses. Kirk’s bio reads as follows.

 

 

Kirk is the financial freedom guy. His mission is for business owners to gain financial freedom on their terms. He believes that when business owners do well, many people do well. Kirk invented the Growth CFO of the Financial Freedom System. He is the CEO of Foresight CFO, a number one Amazon Forbes author, and a Georgetown University graduate studies lecturer. He wrote The Growth CFO Void.

He holds an MBA with a Finance and Accounting concentration and an MA in International Relations and Economics from Johns Hopkins, a graduate certificate in International Business from Georgetown, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Maryland. He is a licensed certified public accountant, and a certified treasury professional, and earned his growth CFO Financial Freedom Certification. Kirk, welcome to the show. Thank you for taking your valuable resource that’s limited, your time to come to spend it with our community.

Andy, when I learned about your background and what you’re doing, I couldn’t wait to jump on and have this conversation because you never know where it’s going to go. Thank you for having me.

Backstory

We always like to start the conversation off with the self-leadership things I’ll ask you to pick a time in your timeline of your life. It could be when you’re 3 or 30 years old. It doesn’t matter. Pick a timeline and fill in those gaps for us from your bio as to how it is that you got to where you are now.

The most recent top-of-mind thing is before Foresight, we have been working in private companies for years. Let me describe my family origin just a little bit. My mom’s a school teacher, and my dad was a salesman for a big company. When I think about family, older brother, younger sister, and growing up, it was safe. It was stable. It was middle class. It was a good life. Work hard, save your money and when you’re 75 years old, not 65 you can start to enjoy it. That kind of belief system like money’s scarce and that kind of stuff. For whatever reason, I jumped off to a different branch.

In high school, I have been entrepreneurial. I built and sold a business for three years when I served in the army in the first Gulf War. It’s behavioral science. It’s nothing heroic, but a good formative experience. I have been in private businesses and we don’t have resources. It is shaky even when things are good but I loved it because it’s with real people. You’re side by side together. It’s almost like the military, that brotherhood. A few years ago, I jumped in. One business went well. I built it and sold it. My future was liberated. I was going to go jump in and get a W-2 job, but somehow I kept getting hit on the head about, “You’re not here for that. You’re here for something else now.”

That was Foresight and Foresight got to a certain point. It’s a new way of working like Growth CFO. It’s three-person teams inventing something new, but I got stuck. Whatever it was about my background being on the financial side, the CFO side of businesses, being out in the world, in the marketplace, selling, speaking, the business got to a certain level but then flatlined for years. I think you would probably tell me, “Kirk, there’s something in you.” There’s something I need to grow and develop. There’s something. There’s a blind spot. At least with my blind spots, I can’t see them.

Looking around, “Is it here? Is it there,” but somebody like you would see it because you’re the coach or the guy, the expert. That’s what happened in my case where it’s a pivotal moment. I was soul-searching, “Why are we stuck?” I want to be great, block and tackle traditional, or whatever. It’s necessary but it’s more than that and then even more than that, I want to be on up here and not quite getting there with my team.

I went and found a guide and somebody to help go deep into inner work and that kind of thing. I developed certain beliefs. I wasn’t aware of like, “Kirk, if you get too close to people like intimately business is close, I won’t be free to go do bring this better thing into existence like more effective, better, and more meaningful life. That was keeping me from creating some of the relationships that I needed to take my business to bring in clients and do what I needed to do beyond where we were at.

Talking about recent history is the most pivotal thing in my experience, but it came through a lot of pain because I was trying things out. I kept hitting the wall and falling flat. I don’t think I would’ve been reading books like Carol Dweck’s work on fixed mindset, and learning mindset. Why are people holding onto the ground? Did I answer your question at all? I was thinking through the story.

Your story is what I do in my coaching. These are the same issues that other business owners have. The conversation that most illustrates what you went through is there are things in life and business you know without a doubt. You’ve either experienced them or they come straight out of the business books in college that you learned or whatever. Those are things that and then there are things that you know that you don’t know.

You read magazine articles or things that you know are out there, but you haven’t had the time or haven’t taken the time to learn and understand them. Also, if you brought them in, you might get a little bump in your revenue. You might get a 3% bump or a 5% kind of bump. However, to get that major step sounds like what you were hoping for, but missing because you had this kind of stagnant growth, and you’re looking for a major step up.

You have to deal with the things that you don’t know that you don’t know and that’s what your internal journey was. I didn’t know that mindset was going to fix my business. You’re looking inside. All the focus is outside. Why are my revenues not coming in? Why are my expenses too high? Where are all my customers? You’re looking outside for the answers when the true answers are on the inside.

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You didn’t know that that has an impact on your business and you got that big major step when the light bulb went on and you realize, “Maybe there’s something on the inside.” That’s the first half is knowing that maybe there’s something on the inside, and then you start reading the books, talking to people, hiring a coach, or whatever it may be that you start working on those things in those areas that you didn’t know had any impact on your business. That’s the benefit of working with a coach is doing that.

Team Building

It is a fascinating journey. I think one of the outcomes of all of our businesses is us. We are the product and our team members. How good does it feel to see a team member come in at one level or at whatever stage they are in life and to see them doing something better? The people they’re working with can’t say enough but it is the inner work. It’s not the lack of opportunity or the need to pivot. The outside world is doing what it does.

It’s trading blocks, changing, or whatever but there’s no lack of opportunity of things that could be done to add value with clients that have the ability to pay any business owner. I know if I’m stuck there’s something for me to develop. Maybe I’m missing a certain skill on the team or something but there’s a blind spot.

There is no lack of opportunities that could be done at value with clients that can pay any business owner. Click To Tweet

I’ve always stated that the number one job of a leader is to build other leaders. Usually, the pushback at get on that statement is, “Yeah, but not everybody wants to be a leader.” I’m saying, “You’re missing the point.” The number one job of a leader is to build other leaders, particularly of the self-leader type. If you’re going to get the best out of the people that you hire or bring to be part of your team, what are you doing to help them be self-leaders and achieve what the universe created them for?

Max creativity, max output, and max everything that’s going to help your business and get better results for your business. Nobody ever thinks about the self-leadership angle on that piece. That’s why I tried to have a philosophy. In my leadership when I was at Boeing, it was more of a life coach than a boss to get one-on-one conversations with my team members behind closed doors and help them with life if necessary.

How did that work out? You’re behind closed doors. It’s because a lot of businesses are arm’s length and that kind of stuff, how did that work out?

You have to meet them where they’re at. I always try to start with the invitation when they first come on the team. I’ll meet you where you want. Some people aren’t willing to dive into anything of a personal nature. I’m like, “That’s fine.” This is a no pressure. My emotionally safe, no-pressure environment. One gentleman who worked on the team was having difficulty in the marriage which eventually led to a divorce, but he knew I was already a divorced person. He came in one day, knocked on the door, came in shut it. He wanted to have a conversation about divorce.

That’s freedom. As a sage leader, you can have conversations and help people. A lot of times, when people are not performing, they’re in their own way. It’s to help get past that on a very human level and go for freedom. They go as far as they want to go with it. How far do you want to go in this business and this career track? How far do you want to go in life?

Where do you want to go? I helped some team members who were with me for 2 to 3 years and then moved on to a different company because Boeing didn’t have either the right jobs or the skill sets they were looking for in whatever their careers. I’m like, “Let’s maximize your time here. The 2 or 3 years you’re going to be here, let’s do what we can of what Boeing can do for you, and then set you up for success for wherever you want to go.”

I also had a number of people who wanted to go do other things within Boeing and what they were doing on my team. I said, “Great. Let’s develop the skills necessary that are going to make you attractive to other leaders within Boeing so that when they have positions open for them, you can go interview them and hopefully, move on to that.” I move people to product management. I move people to sales support. There are all kinds of different things that I helped them with, but that’s being more of a life coach than a boss to understand.

It’s because if you approach it as a leader from a fixed mindset and say, “No, I can’t lose you,” then you’re going to stifle the person. You’re probably not going to get everything out of the person because they say, “My boss is a roadblock,” but if they see you as a partner in going after what they want, and you as a leader have an abundant mindset to say, “I’m going to miss this person. I love having them on my team, but I’d rather see them be successful in life. I’ll go out and find another person to sit in the seat and do the same thing for them.”

Why do you think Nick Saban was so successful at Alabama? How many coaches did he lose because he was successful on the field? He was losing assistant coaches left and right. The current head coach for my alma mater is an ex-Saban guy. Saban had an abundant mindset to say, “No. I thank you for your service. Go and be successful and let me know how I can support you. I’ll find somebody else to come take your seat and I’ll do the same thing for him.”

I was talking to Joey Coleman who is the author of Never Lose a Customer Again and Never Lose an Employee Again. He was talking about how important the career path is. It was almost like the number one thing about how well a person would do in any given position. What you’re describing is related to that where you talk with people and find out where they’re at, where they want to be, and align the business with the personal and chart it out. Let’s nail this milestone, the checkpoint along your flight, and where do you go next?

With Growth CFO business-building, there are five obstacles. That’s one of them is that people or capacity? Where is it optimized? You can argue about the win but without a doubt, AI is coming into the workplace fast. One year, there’ll be some changes, but maybe not radical, but somewhere between 1 year and 10 years, it’s going to be vastly different. If somebody works on a computer or does task-level work at a keyboard, the world’s going to be different.

I think robotics are not too far behind where they’re already marching around restaurants and that kind of stuff. Also, security patrols. I have a client in Arizona that has robots for $16 an hour patrolling warehouses, farms, and stuff already. AI’s been around for a long time, but specific uses like financial systems or whatever. Now, it’s general AI.

Artificial Intelligence And Robotics

It’s for mainstream use. AI has been around in the very technical aspects of computer skills, maybe the military, and those types of things but to make it accessible and useful for the mainstream is starting to come out. I have another episode coming out with five other people. It’s a panel discussion about spirituality and business. It was all driven by the concern about what AI is bringing to the table. You’re a finance guy so you’ll appreciate this comment.

How are we going to keep our GDP in the world or specifically the US going? Also, supporting the number of mouths we feed and the number of roofs over the heads that need to be in a strong economy if we’re bringing in technologies that are going to subplan some types of jobs. It’s because you can have a physical machine that’s either physically doing things that humans used to do or from an intellectual kind of basis. How is it that we’re going to keep it going?

That’s a real question mark.

That’s why I wanted to throw out that conversation about spirituality and business because I’m a firm believer that humans are going to have to get more creative. We’re going to use AI as a tool to do our jobs just like Microsoft Excel did some things for us, and then the internet came along. The internet did some things and now we have this other tool here that’s going to help us in our work.

However, the kind of repetitive task-oriented kind of work is going to get more and more taken over by automation, which means that we as humans need to bump or evolve into more of the creative side. Is spirituality a tool, so to speak? I hate using that word, but how can spirituality help us within business to allow humans to evolve to work in a more creative field in order to keep the number of jobs around to allow our GDP to not take a major hit because we can’t find work for people?

I do think there’s a part two of the thought process but with spirituality, I do believe as the machines come in and do more of the task-level work, AI first, and then at some point, robotics. Robotics have altered controlled settings like warehouses and factories. Robots at some point, autonomous vehicles, and that kind of stuff are going to be free to roam office environments. They are free to roam the streets just like United do. I don’t think that’s too far. You look at optimists and the kind of stuff that Elon has already developed and Boston Dynamics. You have this super brain with this super body that you can change out. You can fly. You can run, swim, or whatever.

Isaac Asimov predicted it way back when.

It’s coming. Cars that fly or whatever is right there. I believe the spiritual or human-to-human are slowing down. It gives us a chance, you and me, to be more human. Slow down with better communication and get more involved with people versus traditional businesses that’s arm’s length. I don’t care about you. You’re a cog. Maybe I care about you, but going forward that human-to-human connection. People in different roles will have to understand the task-level stuff to know what the machines are doing. Most likely, people will finish the last mile of any given work. The machines will do 70%, 80%, to 90% and the person puts the humanness into it to make sure it’s complete and connects.

Business owners must slow done and be more human. They must become better at communication and get more involved with people. Click To Tweet

The person who’s able to take that outcome and communicate to other humans who use the outcome and collaborate and slow down. It’s more of a chief-level conversation and not a task-level conversation. Those people are going to do well. It is more spiritual. It is more human. It is hard to see around the corner. Let’s face it. I still think in the context that we’re in and it’s hard to see around the corner there’s something, something very different.

One of my partners mentioned like hobby life. I’m a guy from Texas, an entrepreneur, a former army. I’m an all go out there and do it stuff. This whole concept of hobby life, my biggest points of development have come from challenges and the need to figure something out as we discussed earlier. How does hobby life provide that? Am I going to get that excited about mountain biking when I’m going to get a real challenge? Maybe because the active hours working won’t be the same.

I’m not sure about how different types of labor adjust to the machines doing more. I’m a bit concerned because, in warehouses and factories where robots come in, this whole idea that people retrain to do something else is not true. You have 2, 4, or 5 generations later, people who never worked in the factory. You’ve Chicago and Detroit. They never worked in the factory. The grandson and daughter are still displaced in the community. “You never worked in the factory. Why don’t you retrain for something else or why didn’t you just train for something else?” People don’t retrain that well. Some do maybe 20%.

School System

It requires the right kind of mindset to have that curiosity built into your mindset that you’re curious about something. I for one, have been self-taught in my hobby areas from photography to music. Other than spending three months with a voice coach, I taught myself how to play the guitar. I taught myself how to take pictures to the point where I sold my photos because people kept pushing me because of the quality of the photos that I took. I had a knack for curiosity and confidence in myself that I could go learn these things and not everybody has that but it’s something that could be developed within somebody.

At some point, we should bring this back to how should a business owner think about AI being more spiritual and human. It’s because what that vision of the future of how you work and how people work with their clients and customers, I say you as the business owners, are going to be different. Ten years is very different. There are fewer changes in one year than we think. Some of this stuff like intellectual curiosity, discovery, and how to collaborate with people. I teach at Georgetown. My mom was an educator. I have two sons who went to school.

The public school system doesn’t support any of that. It’s based on oppression and the military where a person’s literate enough to do what they’re told, but not doing the higher level thinking to be a human. That’s why a lot of people don’t tap into their gifts. Even the business owners who own a business get trapped into all this stuff that they’re not born to do and quite frankly, it’s the grind. It’s that treadmill that won’t stop.

 

They’re trying to create their own paycheck.

They’ve created a job.

Instead of getting hired by somebody else to get a paycheck to go start a business that they’re not interested in in order to have income coming into the household like a paycheck.

Versus being an architect making an asset where the business is designed for them to do what they were born to do as they discover that. No one knows all the answers, but at each stage, the businesses are allowing them to be their best and the people around them are the best. That’s spiritual but the school system is going to have to evolve. They’re not achieving basic literacy like reading and writing Arithmetics at this point. It is not a resource. It is not a financial question because the average student’s $12,000 a year per student. You probably could do it for $4,000 and get 10X the results based on what we already know about how to educate a human.

The schools that are paying the most, some of them like Baltimore are paying $27,000 a year. Think of twelve years. You got the half-million dollar investment and get the worst results. They have dozens of schools with no one on grade level. It’s not a resource question. It’s not even close but how do we develop humans? They can do about $4,500 a year and get 10X results to be humans and have critical thinking. They know how to tap into knowledge and data in a way to have clarity and use these advanced tools.

It used to be you couldn’t use a calculator in school. Now, schools are learning. You better bring AI. It’s a key tool that people need to be good at. I think that’s where a lot of the tension is coming from that we see on a political and economic front. There are these fundamental shifts going on like uncoupling from enemies and trading and doing more with our allies who you should do business with. Do business with your friends. Do business where it’s mutual where you prosper and you do it fairly with trust?

 

Do more with them but it’s a major transformation on a scale like after World War II, the Bretton Woods, that level of transformation where the US dollar became the backing of the global money. Post-COVID, what people care about in their lives is the fundamental values for the better where people are asking, it’s not just work. There are other things too. To give credit to the Baby Boomers who did the work. They lifted two billion people globally out of poverty for one generation. I got married with $600. I understand the struggle.

It’s what I call the period of do.

What is that?

One of my favorite coaching tools is the be, do, have model. If you go on my website, it’s all over the place. Are you a human doing or are you a human being? Our school system through the years has been set up to teach the mind and to teach humans how to survive being human beings. They teach you math skills. They teach you about history. They teach you the correct use of the English language and those types of things so that you can go out in the world when you’re eighteen and survive. You go earn a living, put food on the table, a roof over your head, or whatever.

The school system’s not set up to teach you how to be a human. It teaches you about the mind and survival. It teaches you how to be a human being and not how to be a human being. If I give you a simple Algebra equation, X plus Y equals Z, and I give you three words, be, do, and have. You could put those three words in your equation somewhere. What do Hollywood and society teach you?

Go do the X equals do Y equals have. Go do these things. Then you get to have these things equal Z or be and then you get to be somebody in the world. How many sad and lonely people that followed that equation in life went, “I got millions of dollars in the bank and I’m not happy,” but if you take that same formula and go, X equals be and Y equals do, meaning I’m going to focus on being a human being in all aspects of being a human being. To your point in the conversation. I’m going to go do those things. I want to build a business that aligns with who I am as a human being. My why, purpose, and passions in life then equal Z. I get to have joy, happiness, and success in my life every single day. It’s a total flip.

You discover who you are and be true to that but there’s a real gift. It takes a minute to discover it but that’s the journey. That’s the good part.

Discover who you are and be true to that. Click To Tweet

Defining Freedom

You get to have peace. I get to have peace because I don’t worry about anything else. I know who I am. I’m out there doing things in the world that add value, and I’ve got joy and happiness in my life. That’s peace. As I said we brought the episode on. We’re talking about freedom. What is freedom? Define freedom. What is that?

Firstly, I love how much you created a formula. That’s good. I like that. You are talking about freedom. Define what it is.

Some people define freedom as “I’ve got $5 million in the bank and it allows me to do whatever I want.” Money is a tool. I get to go out and do what I want. Now, that doesn’t guarantee I got joy and happiness in my life. I go back to the first version of the equation. What is freedom? Just like success, everybody has to define what freedom means to themselves.

I think it needs to be defined because money’s definitely a resource. You imagine having the $5 million that somebody has a pinched driven in the back and they can’t get out of bed. Is that freedom? That’s $5 million. Also, finding the relationships that matter like friends, loved ones, and other things. It’s that real love and the people that you care about that are worth sacrificing for. I can’t imagine what that’s like.

I do think that’s where it starts. I like the whole being thing where it starts to the extent that any person knows at a point in time. I do think working with some kind of guide. It could be online. It could be in person or whatever to the extent they can figure out who they are now and what matters to them. Once I become conscious that this matters to me, stop doing other stuff. Stop making the noise. That step is going to reveal a different step. What else matters?

Also, life starts working for you because then you’re going to start attracting the things in your life that you want. We’re always attracting, but if we’re always doing the first version of the equation, we’re attracting money into our lives, but we’re not doing anything to attract joy and happiness.

Freedom of purpose, time, money, and relationships. Getting those right and discovering those aspects of ourselves, that joy, peace of mind, the sense of it matters and it does matter. We’re here for a reason, that’s spirituality.

I learned a big lesson in this. I went and did a two-week mission trip to the country of Kenya. I went into a village in the northern part of the country. I was in a village that had a market day. I think it was two days out of the week market day. The people from surrounding smaller villages would come with their items to sell in the marketplace in hopes of making some money or trading for food or whatever it may be.

I watched 50, 60-year-old women that were walking in bare feet with these big sticks on their backs that they were to go sell in the marketplace. They would walk 4, 5, 6, and 7 miles with these sticks to get to the marketplace for the market. They had this huge smile on their face. You and I, if we had to do that, we’d be bitching up a storm. Four-letter words would be coming out of her mouth every step and here’s this woman with a huge smile on her face. She was being a human being. It’s all about the context, the mindset, and a feeling of abundance in life. Those are the things that are about being a human being and not a human being.

Scarcity creeps in quite a bit. One of the things I studied was Economics. Back then, the definition was that economics was the allocation of scarce resources in the 1930s depression when all that stuff came out. If you Google now, not every definition says scarcity. I think that’s an evolution. There’s abundance. There’s unlimited energy. If you have unlimited energy, you can have unlimited water because the oceans are big. You just take the salt out and you can drink it.

Energy allows you to do that as an example. We don’t have the answer on how to tap into all the unlimited energy, but human ingenuity, human problems, and human creativity especially the free people where you and your local neighborhood if you have a problem, you could choose to solve it and benefit accordingly. That’s business ownership. We can solve these things. The fact that we don’t solve it all overnight is a good thing because then what would the next generation do like your daughters or my sons?

It is a cool thing. How do we run our businesses where people are doing good by doing well? How do we set things up where there’s multi-generational development? I grew up a self-made man. You are eighteen, you go out in the world, and you’re on your own. The journey has taught me that it doesn’t make sense. The wealthy people don’t do that. They’re all in for their sons and daughters. They are putting things in place five generations out.

I’m a trustee of one of these families. I’ve seen them manage the money well, legal liability, and privacy. You couldn’t find them if you were looking for them but they don’t develop the human capital well. They’re still all in. They go further than a lot of middle-class families do and we’re going to elevate and expose. The harm that comes out of that is almost like this imposter syndrome where a baby is born with $3 to $4 million, and it gets better from there. There’s a $150 million trust on top of that. It’s damaging. It’s not because of the money. It’s because they haven’t developed the person, the being intentionally to sit in that seat with confidence and purpose.

That part’s missing. People need to struggle forward and uphill and that kind of thing. All that fits into business owners. They do have the ability to bring in the household income they need so there is that level of freedom. You do what you want when you want. You build the business so that you get the right hat, not all the hats. There are stages to it and there’s certainly an option to build a business that’s valuable and transferable.

It’s not dependent on the business owner. It is unique. There is a strategic buyer, and you’re getting a big check where there are multiple generations of development available. I essentially say developments instead of just wealth because just wealth is damaging. That’s the journey. The Growth CFO Business Building can take them to that point. That’s the journey that can be rewarding so that then your daughters, granddaughter, and grandson have backing.

I’m not talking about finances. I’m talking about everything you learn is present to that generation plus what they learned since you and I were here. We’re getting to my purpose. I would help people go beyond their self-imposed limits and to do something remarkable in life based on who they are so it’s all freedom to be who you are.

Is it safe to say you have a financial freedom system, but the word that’s accentuated here is freedom, and not necessarily that the finances may be the entry point to this journey, but a lot of the work that we’re going to be doing for in your financial freedom system is a legacy or generational wealth building, as well as what are we doing here as a human being to take you up to that next level.

Do you want me to unpack that a little bit?

Growth CFO

Yeah. Give us some insight as to what it is that you do.

Growth CFO is been something new to serve the underserved businesses. They are typically smaller businesses that don’t have access to the things that bigger businesses have for the reason that bigger businesses are big. The Growth CFO Business Building is getting into obstacles like winning clients and keeping, and growing clients. Also, people’s capacity and access to capital. Financial performance could be an obstacle.

The money’s not there for payroll and things get tough. In addition to that, on the personal side, a lot of us business owners are putting so much into the business. Our personal life is suffering. The husband and wife relationship is not good. With kids, missing events, and that kind of stuff. I’ve been there. I’ve sacrificed my family for providing. The Growth CFOs work side by side. It’s a three-person team 90-day sprint. It’s very intentional but let’s start by getting that destination that matters to you.

You can go as far as your vivid vision of your future self. What matters to you? It’s because the more we know about that destination, the more we know how to build a business like household income, and what kind of organization we need. The capacity so that the owner can delegate things they weren’t born to do. What value is needed in the business including uniqueness so that there is a second payday? There’s an option for one.

The Growth CFOs can do that kind of work, but let’s be realistic here. A growth CFO is not somebody. It’s not a coach. It’s not somebody who can do the inner work. If I have a successful team, I need a coach at a certain point. If I’m stuck, I need somebody who can go deep and they help me unlock myself so that both my life and my business can thrive and prosper.

Those are different expertise. I’m starting now doing the Life Mastermind three times a year. Let’s meet and go through life like your bucket list and multi-generational development. How do we do it where it’s safe? We created our own technology. It’s the freedom platform. It has a life module where I can have my life as intentional as building my business on the module.

Also, that gives me a chance to meet with people. It’s not coaching because it’s three times a year. It’s every four months and this is what I was born to do. I can get intimate and we share. You might have experiences that are helpful to other people and you might have resources and experts. Growth CFO is not tax compliance. That’s what CPAs do. That’s a different skill but I might need somebody who’s a true tax strategy and not tax tactics like, “Send all your money out.”

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You might know the right person on a personal side for that. Three times a year, I can meet with clients and other people I care about. I work on this life. It’s supported by the freedom platform. It means the follow-through gets easy. If my tax strategy specialist has something to do, there’s a task. I don’t have to chase them. If they’re ignoring the task and making me chase them, I’m going to have a conversation. It is going to be, “You’re on my success team. I need to be able to depend on you.” I don’t want to spend my life chasing the property manager and the lawyer for setting up asset protection.

I have tried to do this for three years on a spreadsheet. I’m disciplined most of the time and couldn’t follow through. I love spreadsheets. In a few years, I got stuff I still haven’t done but the life platform, the same way we build a business where the follow-through is built in. If you’re on the team and I have something assigned to me, I see it on my dashboard every day.

That’s my job to get it done for the team and the greater good. I apply the same thing in life. It gives me a chance to know people. I help them follow through with the technology because of the technology-enabled. It helps me hear firsthand how to guide my company Foresight to do even better on the business building side. Does that lay out how the pieces fit together?

I like the strategy. You’re taking a program management look at things. You are developing this platform that allows them to break things up into smaller bites if you will. How am I going to eat the elephant? You lay out tasks to various people who are in your support system. You’re asking them to do these little pieces that are going to help you with your program.

Also, including building your success team. In this day and age, if somebody like me doesn’t have a coach, good luck because the guys and gals who do are way ahead of you. I started to notice that in many years of building businesses, I remember Richard Rossi who is a phenomenal entrepreneur. He built companies in numbers I can’t even speak about. Not the billions. I’m a small business guy.

 

Importance Of A Coach

What do you think is the number one reason why you need a coach? It goes back to what we talked about in this conversation. The school system doesn’t teach you that stuff.

They don’t teach you to be a human. Even if it did, you’re still going to need to coach for that next stage in your life. Imagine that athlete. They had coaches in Little League, in high school, in middle school, and all that kind of stuff. They have a coach for every part of their body. They have the elbow coach, the swing coach, the back swing coach, and the left swing coach. Especially when you’re pursuing excellence, it is the fight or flight. Twist it or angle it this way.

For flights, we talk about a lot of flights like financial flight plans. There are a lot of flight analogies and destinations. I’m an army guy with an Air Force analogies, but if a plane is one degree off over 60 miles of travel, which is not much, they’ll miss the target by one mile for every 60 miles of travel. Where’s the airport? I’m not sure. What country are we in? I’ll get back to you. It’s the same way with a CEO business owner or any position. There’s no way I can see what the fishbowl is if I’m in the fishbowl.

My brain is seeing things and filtering things out but you, the coach can say, “How about you angle up another degree? You’re not there. Angle more,” and then see where things land and adjust. There’s no way a person can do that without multiple guides at different points. I questioned Richard Rossi. He was spending $25,000 a year on a coach back then. This was more than a few decades ago. I was a financial analyst and we were trying to build a business. I asked him, “What is this?”

He explained what it was and all the benefits of having peer groups and a coach. My only response was you can just imagine how blank my stare was. Are we building a business or living a country club lifestyle? Over a decade, I started noticing a difference. I worked in a lot of private businesses. The ones who have a coach, a peer group, they’re actively doing that. I can see that they have more options. They’re clearer. Their follow-through is better. They’re more pleasant. They have more peace.

They have bad days. They have cash crunches and that kind of stuff but it’s night and day. I start saying, “Huh.” I’m a slow learner so it took me about fifteen years to get it. At some point, I said, if I’m going to jump in with somebody and commit, I commit passionately to the business owners. This is before even Foresight CFO.

I’m going to ask them, “What are you reading? Who’s your coach?” If it’s, “I’m not reading. The last thing I read was Green Eggs and Ham in grade school. I don’t have a coach. I did it for a while and stopped.” Either we’re going to address that or this is not the right place for me because it’s going to be fixed mindset, status quo, stock, and frustration. It’s not good for the business owner and for me. Let me opt out.”

If you want to see a great example of that, I’m in the middle of watching the latest season of Full Swing on Netflix, which takes a look at the PGA Tour and you get kind of intimate with some of the bigger names on Tour, their personal life, and those kinds of things. The last episode I watched follows this very young gentleman. Wyndham Clark, I believe, is his name. He came out of the Pac-12 golf player. He comes into the PGA tour thinking he’s going to be on fire and competing with the big names right away because of what he’s achieved at the college level, and that doesn’t happen for him.

He’s getting angry and frustrated. They got video clips of him taking his club and beating the heck out of his golf bag and so forth. He’s not getting the results that he wants. He hires a sports psychologist and the next thing you know, he is winning the US Open. He’s going up head to head with Rickie Fowler at the US Open and beats him because of a sports psychologist coach. Not anybody that’s working on his left elbow, right elbow, his core, his swing, or how he puts but what’s going on?

It’s the best investment ever. Look at the outcomes. How would he have gotten there without the guy or gal doing the head game with him to get clarity inside? Phelps, the swimmer, was focused. He had some training along those lines.

Closing Words

Kirk, I could talk to you forever about this stuff. This is what brings joy and happiness to my heart. These conversations are why I do what I do because they bring joint happiness to my heart. Our time, unfortunately, is coming to a close. What’s the best way for somebody who is more interested in your program or would like to become a client or anything of that nature, what’s the best way they can reach out and connect with you?

The best way to take a look is my personal website. It’s KirkWMcLaren.com. You’ll get a feel for me. If you want to talk about what you’re working on, your vision, your strategy, and where you might be getting slowed down, click the button and grab time. Use my calendar link. That’s the best way.

I forewarned you in the green room. The last question we ask of every guest that comes on the show is, Kirk, what are the words that generate your value mean to you?

Generate my value means to unlock whatever things and the blind spots that are holding me back. I got to have a guide to do it. I’ve never been able to do it by myself. Also, 10X the vision. Don’t play small. If I’m making that kind of investment, the right guide, do the inner work to get clear, and then create the vision that is colored. I can feel it. It’s worth getting up every day. This is what I was born to do. That’s what generate your value means to me.

For our reading audience, I hope that you found some golden nuggets in Kirk and I’s conversation that you might be able to use and integrate, whether it’s the human doing versus human being conversation or the be, do, have in the formula X plus Y equals Z. How would you plug those words into the equation for yourselves? Items such as that are what I call golden nuggets that you can use and integrate into your life or your business or both. That’s going to help you to find that joy and happiness in life and truly have full freedom. More than financial freedom to have full freedom to live out your purpose in life and to be your authentic self. That’s what the name of the game is here on the show.

With that being said, as a reminder. That spirituality panel that I talked about is coming out. I hope you’ll tune in for that conversation. I have some great panelists. Hit that subscribe button. We’re here with great guests like Kirk. I hope you’ll come back for more of our conversations with some great people to help you in your life and your business. Have a great day or week. We’ll see you here next time on the show. Take care.

Andy, thank you. I appreciate what you’re doing out there.

I appreciate that Kirk, and thanks for taking the time to come talk to us.

 

Important Links

• Foresight CFO
• The Growth CFO Void
• Never Lose a Customer Again
• Never Lose an Employee Again
• Green Eggs and Ham
• KirkWMcLaren.com

 

About Kirk W. McLaren

Kirk is the “Financial Freedom Guy.” His mission is for business owners to gain financial freedom on their terms. He believes that when business owners do well, many people do well.

Kirk invented the Growth CFO Financial Freedom System, is the CEO of Foresight CFO, a #1 Amazon Forbes author, and a Georgetown University graduate studies lecturer. Kirk wrote The Growth CFO Void.

In addition to a rewarding career, Kirk is married to the love of his life – Nayarit has two sons Don Fernando and Luke Leonardo who both serve as Army Officers after graduating from West Point Military Academy, likes being outside hiking and biking, and takes care of his Belgian Malinois, Daisy.

Kirk holds an MBA with a Finance and Accounting concentration, an M.A. in International Relations and Economics from Johns Hopkins SAIS, a Graduate Certificate in International Business from Georgetown University, a Bachelor of Science from University of Maryland University College, is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA), a Certified Treasury Professional (CTP), and earned his Growth CFO Financial Freedom Certification (FFS).