Episode 5: Building on Bedrock— How to Build an Unbreakable Business Legacy with Doug Foley
“The harder it gets, the closer you are to a major breakthrough.” —Doug Foley
Building an enduring business legacy is about more than simply achieving profits or growth— it is establishing an enterprise that stands the test of time by positively impacting those it serves. However, crafting such a legacy demands vision for the long term, a willingness to learn from both successes and failures, and dedication to continuously improving one's skills and leadership. By keeping the customer's experience at the forefront while embracing challenges as opportunities to strengthen core principles, a business owner can lay the first steps towards a reputation that inspires long after the founder's time.
In this episode, Doug Foley joins Scott to discuss the long game of business. Doug is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and host of the Happiness of Pursuit podcast. Through his work helping businesses scale with AI and his popular books and talks, Doug has established himself as a leading expert on building an unbreakable business legacy.
Listen in as Scott and Doug explore interesting topics such as leveraging expertise to create value for clients, trading time for money, laying a solid foundation for lasting success through long-term thinking, skills acquisition, and personal branding, prioritizing holistic well-being, embracing struggles as opportunities for growth, and overcoming challenges through faith and discipline.
Connect with Doug:
As the official Zig Ziglar Small Business Lawyer and a Ziglar Legacy Certified Trainer, it’s no wonder that Scott Reib is known as “America’s Legal Coach.” For the last two decades, Scott has been helping business owners, entrepreneurs, and coaches “shatterproof” their businesses by implementing specific strategies for structure, growth, and protection.
Episode Highlights:
03:45 Building a Lifestyle Business
08:06 The Importance of Long-Term Thinking
13:59 AI in Business
19:59 The Importance of Personal Development
23:37 Prioritizing Mental, Physical, and Spiritual Health
27:14 Weathering the Storms
32:20 Experience a Major Breakthrough
Resources:
Book
🎙️Breakout Blueprint by Doug Foley
Is there a secret formula for building a business legacy that lasts for generations? Listen in as @reiblaw and entrepreneur and digital pioneer, @douglasjfoley, share invaluable insights on leveraging expertise, long-term thinking, and personal development. #Podcast #PodcastLaunch #TheShatterproofEntrepreneur #BusinessStrategy #BusinessGrowth #BusinessBuilding #BusinessLegacy #LifestyleBusiness #PersonalDevelopment #Mindset #FaithInBusiness #LongTermThinking
Quotes:
02:08 “I was just trapped trying to pursue wealth. And I lost focus on things that were important to me.” —Doug Foley
03:04 “When people are working on something they're passionate about, that's where the sense of fulfillment and lasting happiness comes from. The main piece is once somebody chooses a passion, the next step is just taking action.” —Doug Foley
06:11 “If you can focus more on value, that's where you can start to free up timing.” —Doug Foley
07:57 “You gotta love the journey of entrepreneurship and the experiences of the people you meet along the way. That's when you start to unlock a true lifestyle business.” —Doug Foley
09:41 “A lot of people rush too quickly to try to just do something quickly or earn a quick buck, and they don't see the importance of acquiring high-value skills. And that's the first step to unlocking someone's potential.” —Doug Foley
13:54 “The reputation you have with your clients— that's the foundation of a scalable business.” —Doug Foley
20:08 “It's the little things over time, that make a difference.” —Scott Reib
22:11 “You need to be able to show up as the best version of yourself. Eventually, too much stress will keep in and it will impair your ability to provide the best value you can.” —Doug Foley
24:16“You want your whole legacy to just be that you built a great business, you want to have built a great life.” —Scott Reib
28:06 “If you don't have faith and grounded relationships, you'll end up in a very empty life.” —Doug Foley
32:25 “The harder it gets, the closer you are to a major breakthrough.” —Doug Foley
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Transcription:
Scott Reib: Welcome to The Shatterproof Entrepreneur, this is Scott Reib. My special guest today is my good friend, Doug Foley. Doug, welcome to the Shatterproof room.
Doug Foley: Thanks so much for having me, Scott, and honored to be among the first few guests.
Scott Reib: Could you kind of tell everyone who you are, what you do, and what's important to you?
Doug Foley: Absolutely, I will tell you. I will start by saying the single most important thing to me is my family and friends. Second to that is helping entrepreneurs grow at every scale. So if that's people looking to start a side hustle or launch a business, small businesses trying to get bigger, or even mass corporations figuring out how to scale globally, I just have a huge buy for entrepreneurs. I think a lot of that came from growing up in a family of small business entrepreneurs. And then I started the podcast, Happiness of Pursuit, and I've interviewed over 150 incredible entrepreneurs, had some amazing experiences along the way, and that led to a book deal and a TED Talk. So now, I'm really just focused on figuring out how I can serve entrepreneurs at every level, and figure out how to break through each of those plateaus and get to where they want to be.
Scott Reib: Okay, thanks for giving us what's important to you. And you mentioned the book, so let's start with the book. Could you share with us what inspired you to write, it's called the Breakout Blueprint, right?
Doug Foley: So the Breakout Blueprint is designed to help people find their passion, take action and build a lifestyle business. One of the things, I don't know if it's fortunate or unfortunate, but I've met a lot of people who are incredibly wealthy and miserable. And when I started down this path, a lot of it was written to dissolve, or scratch my own itch, where it's creating and scaling an agency. And that's right around the time you met. And it was really frustrating. Like it was burnt out was. Like it was building myself my own job. I was just trapped trying to pursue wealth. I kind of lost focus on things that were important to me. Fortunately, there were no catastrophic events. There's nothing. You're really damaging. But had I kept down the path, it probably would have ended up in divorce. So when my daughter was born, I started to realize that there's a lot more to life than just building a business to get on private jets and fancy cars. And that focus led me down the path of really diving deep into the podcast. And the thing that was interesting, the more successful the entrepreneurs that I met, they had found fulfillment in choosing businesses around the things that were passionate about whether that passion was a global problem they wanted to solve, or whether it was something that they enjoyed sharing with other people. And that was kind of the genesis of pivoting my podcast into another direction, which is called Happiness of Pursuit. And then I realized that when people are working on something they're passionate about, that's where the sense of fulfillment and lasting happiness came from. And that helped me distill the principles that are in the book today. But the main piece is, once somebody chooses a passion, the next step is just taking action. It doesn't matter if it's the right path. There's no perfect business, as I'm sure you've seen. But the important thing is to just act and go in a direction. And the single biggest thing I can contribute to my growth, and a lot of projects you and I are working on now is that path to just pick something. Go down the path, you will learn incredible things, and you will acquire skills that become valuable down the road.
Scott Reib: Well, in the book, I remember you talking about lifestyle businesses. How would you define that?
Doug Foley: I think it's defined by the individual, not necessarily by me. Some people like working 100 hours a week, some people like being able to coach their kids' sports teams or work in Sprint's. Maybe they work for six weeks, and they take a month off. The important thing is for people to understand their own definition of what they want their business to be. I find more often than not entrepreneurs, especially when those getting started, they will often create a new job for themselves, not a business. And if I could have gone back, that would have been the advice. I would build a business to match the lifestyle I wanted to live, not try to build this big thing just to generate money to quote unquote afford what I live. More often than not you get to this level where you have so many clients, you just don't have any time freedom anymore. I think when you start or if you're reengineering a business, it's really important to be clear on what you want your life to be like, and then go model the business or find a business model that matches that.
Scott Reib: Do you find the people that are creating the jobs with the crazy boss are usually put guru or what are called technicians. It's like they're experts in their field. They're really good at what they do and so they build this business around that. And then they end up trapped because they're still trading hours and dollars.
Doug Foley: I think that's probably one of my favorite subjects. The difference between trading time for money, and understanding how to leverage expertise and value. And it was something I struggled with forever. I have a whole bunch of skills. I can run Facebook ads, I can help develop a marketing strategy. But I think when you can narrow down to your zone of genius and figure out that single thing that you're great at, you can do it more in a consulting capacity in what's happening in the AI world right now. You can leverage a lot more time by leveraging your expertise in combination with AI, and creating massive amounts of value for people. We just spent the last 18 months doubling down and reshaping an entire agency to be focused on that. And the benefit for the clients is they're getting like a 10x value, but we don't build hourly. We focus more on results, which frees us up. Because if they're getting a max result, I don't care if you know, it takes us an hour or if it takes us 10 hours. It's on us to manage the results. So if you can focus more on value, that's where you can start to free up timing. But I think the next phase if you were to plot it out, I think most people are going to start at something like you mentioned. I have an expertise, I'm going to take that expertise, and I'm gonna charge more than I'm getting paid in my job. That seems to be the first step. Then they reach a point like, good, I just kind of built a new job for myself. They start hiring people and learning to delegate, that's when they move into a small business. But then as small businesses grow, they just keep getting sucked back into the wheel. Once you have figured out how to provide value and get the maximum dollar and your zone of genius, let's say that six-finger consulting, if we get to the optimum position, then I think the next position is figuring out how you create more passive income. And I think too many people want to make that leap too early before they understand what that really is.
In passive income, if you can figure out how to capture what you do in some type of program or course, that can be passive income. But I don't think there's anything that's truly 100% passive. I think every type of thing is going to require effort management focus, because the time you take that eye off the ball or effort, it's funny. Even if I look at something affiliate marketing or any of these online programs, you're still posting two to three times, four times a day every day without taking your foot off the gas to generate the audience to convert it. So I think if you can figure out how to create, let's call it wealth, doing something you love, then be smart about how you invest that to create the passive income. That's how you can really unlock some time freedom. But a lot of people want to skip steps. There are no skipping steps going through that journey. And that's why I called my podcasts, Happiness of Pursuit. You gotta love the journey of entrepreneurship and the experiences of the people you meet along the way. That's when you start to unlock the true lifestyle business.
Scott Reib: You mentioned the journey that reminds me of something we've talked about before, which is the importance of the long game in business. I've got the gray beard to prove it. I've been around quite a while. I've had this law firm, 18 years, and it's definitely been a journey. And there's been ups and downs in it. We're in a really good place right now because a lot of the things that I've learned from talking to you, and you and I met at a mastermind where I got to be around people that were playing at a really high level. I learned a lot from them on some things not to do, some things that are helpful that I do now. We both looked at the online courses and thought that's probably not the answer for the passive income that we're looking for right now. But there is this long game to business that a lot of people aren't even playing in because they're so focused on, what am I going to do today? And maybe tomorrow? They might be looking ahead to tomorrow, but they're not looking at months, three years down the road. What would you say to that entrepreneur?
Doug Foley: Let me circle back to that. I'll tell you where this thinking came from. If you ask my wife, she will tell you that I'm not a patient person. But when I started my career, I was really focused on becoming one of the world's best marketers. I would pick career choices knowing I had to acquire a specific set of skills. And over a 10 year period, I worked jobs in the e-learning space. I worked jobs like the tech space and the ad space. I went to these jobs because I wanted to learn very specific skills that I knew would be high value and in demand forever. And I think a lot of people rush too quickly to try to just do something quick or earn a quick buck, and they don't see the importance of acquiring high value skills. And that's the first step to unlocking someone's potential. So first, if you can figure it out, okay, I'm going to go hire, acquire these skills that are going to be in demand for the next 10, 20 years. Mine were all sales marketing leadership type things. They just haven't been the thing I was most passionate about. The second piece, I look at what was happening in the world and what was happening with wealth. Why were companies failing? And honestly part of it, I would blame Wall Street. So much of the focus of companies looking at how they perform quarterly. But the irony is most companies' customer journey, so the time from when they have their first interaction to the time somebody buys is 9 to 18 months. So if I come into a company and I'm going to impact change, they don't have the patience to let that chain sink in. And I talked to a few different entrepreneurs, a couple of millionaires on my podcast, and most of what they says is if you block out the noise and you focus on what you want to do the next 3, 5 and 10 years and stay true to that direction and play the long game, you'll win. And the same thing was true.
When I started writing my book, when I started to look at some of the best and most valuable relationships like we met years ago, and now we're starting to work on much bigger projects. And that doesn't come overnight. And a lot of times, I think people look for immediate gratification. But the real results come from building a foundation and slowly just growing that foundation again and again. I have to give tribute, probably one of the best examples I've heard is from a gentleman named Marcus Murphy. He's a constant speaker, runs a couple of amazing businesses, but he had given the analogy that when he was going through school, he used to sit in the same room in his business classes, and they were always digging this trench. They're digging this foundation for a building. For three years, it looked like nothing had happened. Went away for summer, came back. And all of a sudden, there's a 20 story building there. But it took three years to pour the foundation. Any good business, it takes time to build a personal brand to build a solid foundation. And most businesses that I know are successful, like they have referrals. But that comes because they double down, they serve their clients well. And now, that business can run with almost any advertising. They're constantly getting new clients from referrals. But very, very few people look at that and understand that. As you go through the journey, you will acquire skills. Your network keeps getting better and better, and you're going to be open to more and more large projects, higher net worth individuals. As long as you just keep adopting that learning, keep pushing. But there is no growth hack. There is no lasting success. It truly is easy come easy go.
Scott Reib: You mentioned a personal brand. How important is personal brand in today's world?
Doug Foley: Massive. Absolutely massive. Doesn't matter if you're an enterprise, if you're an individual. Your personal brand carries a lot of weight. I can tell you that between the book and the TED Talk, it has added a comma to my income. But it took 8 to 10 years to build that. So going back to the question about the long game, it's not something that comes overnight. I think that's why a lot of people get dismayed or discouraged if they're not willing to put the effort into running a podcast like you are, or creating social posts that are targeted to an audience. I think more people are looking at it like, hey, what's the viral growth hack? How do I go viral? That American Idol type mindset where just trying to get to one thing and be famous, not impactful. And I think that if you're very conscious, a personal brand is a really, really strong article. Kevin Kelley is the founder of Wired Magazine. He wrote an article called 1000 True Fans. I think too many people are focused on followers. Having hundreds of thousands of followers instead of like, I just want to serve this specific group of people really, really well and create content that's going to help them build a brand around that. You can go a long, long way with a small group of followers or small group of clients. But your personal brand, even if it's not a big social one, the reputation you have with your clients, that's the foundation of a scalable business.
Scott Reib: How important was doing the book to your personal brand?
Doug Foley: It was massive. It gives so much credibility, because somebody can reference your thoughts. If they're in alignment or agreement with the process or the path that you have, it's a lot easier for them to do business with you. There's a longer presentation I give on the psychology of how people buy. That book is a great door opener. It adds some credibility even going into boardrooms. And I'll be honest, it's funny. I will tell you, most entrepreneurs, even myself, struggle with impostor syndrome. I'm not big enough to be in this room. I haven't accomplished anything. That book is like the greatest enabler ever because very few people have a published book, not unfortunately it became an international bestseller. And so it was really helpful for me. The art of finishing, that was such a self accomplishment. But I think from a credibility standpoint, that really helps open some doors, especially about entrepreneurship. Great door opener.
Scott Reib: I'm working on a book right now that'll be coming out in February. It's been a challenge doing it. It probably was in some ways harder than I thought it was. You may remember, I started the outline in this book in 2019. You and I were talking a lot back then, and then it just got stalled out. And so if you're out there and thinking about it, I'd like to write a book. Do it. One of the things that got me that made me do it was I actually paid someone to help me do it. And once I wrote a check for it, well, it wasn't a real check. But when I put some money in it, suddenly, I was motivated to get it done. And to work at a regular pace on it and get things done. And then it started to really roll, and I'm excited to get that out there. It was fun to take all the stuff that I've been talking about for years and then put it into one place, and put it into some order. Then to be able to get that out there. I'm so excited. I love The Breakout Blueprint. And it's been an important part of my journey. What would you say is the next big thing for Doug Foley?
Doug Foley: One of the biggest things for pivoting into now is just figuring out how to help companies enable AI within their business. And just a deeper understanding of myself, I think the next 5, 8, 10 years is going to be one of the biggest economic booms we'll ever see in our history. I see some of the changes that we have. And even some of the companies that we're working with now, we were working with global billion dollar companies that we had challenges getting into before. But now because we took an early position on AI, it is just opening up massive opportunities. And an example, one of the things I had done recently was creating the (inaudible) where I uploaded my book, a lot of talks I've given, we are constantly uploading podcast episodes. So it's learning a lot of the things I've talked about, and some of the frameworks that we've developed for marketing so we can develop marketing plans really quickly that align with the strategies and how we approach business. So I think that's going to be really interesting to see. I've been really fortunate in my network. We start doing a lot of work with helping businesses get funded. I think that's gonna be cool. I think the way capital markets fund businesses are going to change immensely over the next five years. I think you're gonna see so many alternative funding options beyond traditional banks, traditional loans open up. I think that's going to be incredible.
But going back quickly to what you mentioned about a book, the single biggest thing I think I can contribute to success as an entrepreneur overall comes back to discipline. I remember that I was struggling to get my book done. I hated it. I got to the point that if you are writing a book, have you written a book? I'm sure you can relate to this. You're really gonna get this thing sucks. Like, this is awful. I hate it. I don't want to publish it anymore. And then if you're disciplined enough to just write even just 250 words a day no matter what, I don't care if it's the worst 250 words, but the discipline of just sitting down writing just a little bit, moving a little bit closer towards the goal, that's when I started to have breakthroughs. And what was really astonishing to me. Now going back to your bigger question, it developed these major habits of thought, and it helped me understand how to break down massive problems. We're working on a three and a half billion dollar deal right now. It's incredibly complex. And a lot of times, I would lose sleep over it. But what I started to realize is your subconscious is incredibly powerful. I was in the discipline of writing 250 words. What happens is your subconscious starts to put together the thoughts. And all of a sudden, you'll eventually have a breakthrough. So whatever big business someone has, whatever problem someone's having, just take a breath. Break it down into small chunks and just work consistently on whatever the big goal, that big vision is. You'll be amazed at what the subconscious blocks. I would put a notepad beside your bed. Because for me, big breakthroughs always happened like 3:30 in the morning when I would wake up. So having a note app with the power of discipline and doing small things like it, it made a massive difference. That helped launch the book. If your company is lacking sales, having discipline of just doing outreach every day three to five times, or figuring out how to publish content, whatever the thing is, figure out small things you can do and they will just multiply over a year.
Scott Reib: Over a year. Don't expect to be able to do them for two weeks and suddenly see results. You go back to that long game. It's the little things over time that make the difference.
Doug Foley: It took me 2 years to write the book. It is not an easy feat. I know some people that can pump out a book in 30 days, that's just not me. Could I have probably, but I'd rather produce something of quality.
Scott Reib: I know people like that too that can pump it out. And maybe they have less work to do than we do on other things. I don't know.
Doug Foley: They don't have clients, that's for sure.
Scott Reib: I've worked with a lot of people that are in startup mode. And looking back, it can be such a blessing to be in startup mode where you maybe have one or two clients you're working with or customers, and so you have time to work on those daily habits and create really good discipline in your business and be creative because you have time. When I started my law firm in 2005, I left another firm and brought a ton of business with me so I had no time. I was immediately trying to deliver excellent legal services so that people would come back. We just went to work. I had to really come back a few years later, and really work on that business foundation. When I started getting coached by other business owners and learning what a business coach was, learning about some of these things that have made a big difference for me, which leads me to my next question for you. How important is personal development in the life of an entrepreneur?
Doug Foley: Next to the relationship with your spouse and kids? Single most important thing. I'll tell you, if things are not right at home, it gets very difficult to build a business. I see too many people's lives fall apart because they let the business take the wrong priority. It's tough, especially being a man. There's a song written, I think it's DAX that talks about how hard it is balancing all those things. But I will tell you, personal development, taking care of yourself, understanding how your brain works is funny. I used to have this stigma that just all users were gonna be tough. It's gonna power your way through it. But taking care of your mental health first, and then your physical second. As an entrepreneur, that's what you need to do. You need to be able to show up as the best version of yourself. And eventually, too much stress will keep in and it will impair your ability to provide the best value you can to your clients, or to your business, or to your employees. So take the time to do things. If you're not taking time to do something you love, and it's okay. Give yourself permission to be selfish and focus on, where do you go to recharge? For me, it's surfing, hunting and fishing. I do those things a lot. I moved to somewhere where I could do those things more. But I don't think a lot of people pay enough attention to what's needed for you to thrive. And when you take the time to become self aware and double down on that? You will unlock multiple levels. You'll start to think clearer. But if you get stuck in the weeds and think, oh, it has to be this way. I promise you. It doesn't. You can move. You can create an environment where you can be successful. Finding the people that are going to push you to be, and work at a higher level to your personal development is the single most important thing to become a successful entrepreneur, business owner and leader.
Scott Reib: Reading books, going to conferences, listening to podcasts, like Doug's, taking in really good information, Zig Ziglar used to say that you are who you are, and where you are because of what goes into your mind. You can change who you are and what you are by changing what goes into your mind. And so you gotta make that choice, and it's discipline to make yourself do it. It's discipline even to make yourself take the time off to go have fun. Because if you're in a passion business that you love, then it may not even be worth it to you. But you'll find yourself too wrapped up in the business and life will go by. I'm 55 years old, and it's crazy. I remember my grandma was telling me how fast time would go by. That's making sense. It's just life is flying by you. And if you don't stop to smell the roses, you'll eventually look back and life will have passed you by. You may have built a great business, but you don't want your whole legacy and life to just build a great business. You want to have built a great life. And so you've got to do that intentionally. Just like your business won't grow accidentally, you're not going to grow as a person if you're not spending time with. I think that the mental side, you have to have the physical side that goes together. Then in 2005, I started the law firm. I was coaching a couple soccer teams. I was very busy and not eating well. And over the first year and a half, that I stopped going to gym, I'd gained 35, 40 pounds, and really kind of hadn't even noticed. I've got body dysmorphia. I look in the mirror and I think I always look good.
I kind of ran past it and someone close to me had to point out to me that, hey, you let that go a little bit, you need to tighten up. It was kind of a wake up call for me. I was 39 years old. I was like, I don't want to go into my 40's like this so I joined Weight Watchers. Went to the gym, and got on the training program. Had a 90 day goal, had written goals, had pictures, and had a vision board for what I wanted to do and look like. And in 90 days, I'd lost 40 pounds and was back on shape and feeling better about life. And suddenly, a lot of things started to line up again by just getting the physical side. It's very hard to be in a really good place in your head if you don't feel good. And so I would encourage you this time of year that if you're thinking about it, maybe I'm not in the right spot physically, I need to make some changes. Don't set new year's resolutions. Create some plans and some goals. Write them down, make them smart goals and figure out how you're going to get to where you want to be. And it might take you a year to get where you want to be. Have a plan, look at that and say, what would be the obstacles that would prevent me from that? And write down what those obstacles are so that you're aware of them. Have ways to work around them so that you can have some success.
But in my mind, there's things that go together. And then you would add, what I would say the third pillar is, the spiritual pillar. You need to be spending time with God. You need to be around the people that are minded so that you aren't doing this by yourself. Because being a small business owner entrepreneur is a lot like being on an island. You get in this echo chamber, and everything you do starts making sense. Or the opposite. You start thinking everything's bad and it's all doom and gloom. I've got people like Doug, that I can talk about, hey, here's what I'm thinking. Does this make sense? Or here's what's happening to my business and life. Does it make sense? And you've got to have those people if you want to stay grounded. Because if you're just listening to your own thoughts, that can be a really bad place. This leads me to my next question, how does your faith influence your approach to business?
Doug Foley: Massive. I will tell you a story to kind of redefine it for me. So our daughter, my wife, is in her third trimester. I remember sitting in the office. I got a phone call that said, hey, something's wrong with the baby. We don't know what it is. And for the next 12 weeks, we were doing genetic testing trying to figure it out. We told her that she had a very low chance of survival when she was born. We're in (inaudible) Children's Hospital when she was delivered, and there were 19 specialists in the rooms. It was so severe that when she was born, we didn't know the sex. We chose not to find out. So when she was born, they were asking me like, what is it? And I'm like, I don't care. Is she okay? Because we had been prepared for doom and gloom. And there's two things that are important.
Number one, you were talking about what you become, what you focus on. If you're told for 12 weeks, like, oh, it's bad news, bad news, bad news. You're not in a good place. You don't think clearly. I couldn't embrace the moment. But the second thing is if you don't believe in miracles, or something higher than yourself and listen, I don't care what religion you choose. If you don't have faith and grounded relationships, you'll end up in a very empty life. There are very, very hot, hard times as an entrepreneur. You will run into dark periods. And if you don't have that, it's very difficult for you to pull yourself out of dark situations. I tend to believe that having faith in something much bigger than just what's in front of us is the thing that allows me to deal with harder times. It helps me actually craft the relationships I have with people like you, some of my other close friends. It gives you the space to give yourself a little bit of grace when you need it. It keeps you out of going down a very, very dark path. Doesn't matter which religious publication you read. There are foundational principles in how to live a great life. I think a lot of people just get misguided and turn to drugs, alcohol, sex porn, you name it, to cope. But I encourage you to find faith, find something you believe in. It'll give you that little bit of glimmer of hope on the horizon to walk towards when you're struggling. And I think right now, there's a lot of people coming into real tough times. I think they're going to need it more than ever to endure and realize that it'll restore the structures, the morality. The path that we're headed down in society is not a good one. You're gonna need faith.
Scott Reib: I'm a Christ follower, and I can't imagine going through this journey of life without knowing that I have a hope beyond what I'm seeing here today. If I was all there, if I had to rely on my skills and ability to provide for my family, I think I would be a wreck. I'm not a worrier. I'm not anxious. I know that God is my provider, and I don't have to do that. I just have to be obedient and follow the steps and ask for wisdom that he puts in front of me. Thanks for sharing some of your faith journey.
Doug Foley: I've heard there have been so many times in my life where I'm like, I don't know where the checks gonna come from. But I got faith. It is gonna show up somehow, then it always does. I think whatever that gateway is for people, whether it's manifestation, whether it's Christ, whatever that is, I think it's important that people start looking back to the Faith of their choosing. And there's more to this world. We possibly just have genetics. I have too many miracles happen in my life that I can't explain, so I think people need to lean into it.
Scott Reib: You've been an access member now for several years. How has being a part of the access program affected your journey?
Doug Foley: Massively. I think before we'd met, I just kind of did things ad hoc. There was no structure to it. I was all over the place. But the number of times I've had to work through like, hey, how do I structure this deal? Or how should I have this contract written to protect myself and make sure that I have recourse. Should I need to use it? It's been invaluable. We've had a number of legal situations, unfortunately. But that's inevitable in the business world. You have to have the structure to protect yourself. You have to be able to write contracts quickly, properly. Unfortunately, we've had a number of business opportunities where we could actually create new businesses very quickly and jump on opportunities that others would have done wrong on legalzoom.com, or not had the wherewithal to structure things properly. There's some big transactions coming up that had I not had the structure in place, we'd have a massive tax issue. It's been invaluable.
Scott Reib: Cool. Well, if the listeners want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Doug Foley: Best way is to follow me on Instagram at Douglas J. Foley. Send me DMs. If you want a free copy of the book, you can go to douglasjfoley.com/book. That'll have all the tools and everything you're looking for there.
Scott Reib: A free copy, that's really great. I read the book when it came out. It's definitely worth it. Go and get that if you're listening. That's a resource you don't want to walk away from. Finally, Doug, I want you to look into the camera and talk to the entrepreneur that maybe is having a tough time right now. Maybe they're not feeling so shatterproof today, what advice would you give them if they're struggling?
Doug Foley: If you're struggling, there's one thing I would recommend people to really understand. The harder it gets, the closer you are to a major breakthrough. The times that I wanted to quit, or stop, or throw the towel, or just go find a job was usually within weeks of a massive breakthrough. Probably, the biggest client I've had or rediscovered, hey, what is it that I need to change my business? Or what's the big opportunity? So when you find you're struggling, realize that that's the biggest part of growth. I played a lot of football in high school, and golf in college. I will tell you, the times I struggled the hardest and worked the hardest, the biggest breakthroughs always came. So if you find you're having a hard time, take a breath. Figure out what you're learning, figure out who you can serve. If you need to say a prayer, but I promise you, the harder it is, the more you're growing and the better the outcome is going to be. Even if some of you listen, if the business may even fail, I promise you that that failure will lead to a much bigger thing because you have learned a skill that is going to be invaluable to the future. You just may not know what that future is yet, but every struggle is an opportunity for learning and a new opportunity will emerge.
Scott Reib: That's powerful. Well, Doug, as we conclude our time together, I want to give you a blessing. May you be blessed in all your endeavors, may you be prosperous in every aspect of your life. May your path be enlightened with wisdom, health and fulfillment. May your work not only achieve success, but create an unbreakable business legacy. Thank you for joining us in the shatterproof room, Doug. If you're listening, I hope you liked it. If you did subscribe, we'll see you next week on the shatterproof entrepreneur.