Everything Is Your Fault: The Accountability Shift Every Scaling CEO Needs

Summary‍

01:22 — Work Equals Food: Jerry’s First Lessons in Survival

Growing up in deep poverty, Jerry wasn’t thinking about career development—he was thinking about eating. His first job at 11 came with a club sandwich at the end of the shift, the first restaurant meal of his life. That moment cemented his belief that work creates possibility, a theme that would define his entrepreneurial path.

04:43 — “You’re the Rock”: A Mother’s Unexpected Leadership Lesson

Despite chaos at home, Jerry’s mother gave him a powerful identity: “You’re the rock everyone crashes against.” That framing helped him understand responsibility long before he became a CEO navigating the loneliness and pressure of leading teams and companies.

10:00 — Escaping Generational Poverty Requires a New Community

Jerry explains why escaping poverty required distancing himself from people he cared about. Not because they were bad—but because they reinforced beliefs that held him back. Community matters, but the wrong community can keep you stuck.

19:02 — The Epiphany: Everything Is Your Fault

After being beaten and left for dead at 14, Jerry heard the sentence that changed his life: everything is your fault. Later in adulthood, he realized this wasn’t condemnation—it was empowerment. It became the operating system for his life and businesses.

29:52 — Bootstrapping a Multi-Million Dollar Business on Prepaid Cash Flow

Fired from the company he had built to $3M in its first year, Jerry went back to the same customers—and asked them to prepay hundreds of thousands of dollars so he could start his own business. Against all odds, they did. A masterclass in trust, cash flow, and decisive action.

57:00 — Why Every CEO Needs a Peer Group

Joining a peer-to-peer CEO group changed everything. Jerry discovered that the struggles he thought were unique—cash flow stress, hiring challenges, team issues—were universal. Community didn’t eliminate the loneliness of entrepreneurship, but it made the journey clearer and more sustainable.

Full Transcript

Jeff Holman (00:01.062)
Welcome back to the Breakout CEO podcast. I'm Jeff Holman, host of this podcast and really lucky to be interviewing and talking with so many interesting people who've done so many cool and interesting things. I've got Jerry Brazey here on the show with me today and we've just chatted briefly. There are a few things that sounded like we have some things in common here. He comes from a little bit larger family, has three kids. I'm a little bit larger family and four kids and

Then there was some stuff that stuck out that I'm not sure I know how to relate to it. think I know what the phrase heroin and hookers means, but I'm not sure I can add much to that story. But this is the story of Jerry and what he's done and where he's been and the millions he's made and maybe lost. so Jerry, it's really good to have you on the show today.

Jerry Brazie (00:53.102)
Yeah, that is a great way to kick it off, Jeff. I appreciate it very much. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to dig in.

Jeff Holman (01:00.508)
Yeah, me too. Me too. You've done a lot of stuff. You mentioned, I don't want to, we don't have to go too far back, but you mentioned you've been paying taxes since you were 11. So you've been a busy, busy guy. Tell me from 11 years old, what was that first job that you did? How did you make that money?

Jerry Brazie (01:22.274)
Well, I got a job, again, I come from abject poverty. My mother had six kids when she was 23 years old. Imagine this, she brought home an infant and she had a one, two, three, four, five, six year old. had six kids that were five and under. I think I did that math wrong, but you get my point. Five and under, six kids, largely by herself, every other day for a decade while she was raising them. Seven years later, I come along on accident.

Jeff Holman (01:37.18)
by 23.

Jeff Holman (01:43.282)
Yeah, Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (01:52.2)
me to be an only child because so many years in between. So I have a 22 month younger brother and a little sister. Abject poverty. Dad was gone. Mom's ruling the roost. mean, you know, we stole food to eat. My brother and I had.

Jeff Holman (01:53.502)
Jeff Holman (01:58.849)
okay.

Jerry Brazie (02:05.877)
a whole program of specialty coats that we had cut the pockets out of so we could steal from Safeway. We were just eight years old and six years old and we're running these scams because that's how we ate a lot of times. Because remember, I have older brothers and sisters. At 11, I got the local restaurant guy to give me a job in Portland, Oregon washing dishes on Saturday and Sunday. I would go in there, $2.35 an hour.

Jeff Holman (02:17.981)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (02:31.853)
And they paid me the funny thing about paying me is I would go right around the corner to the local market cash the check and get all ones because I wanted to have a WOD that looked like you know I knew what I was doing because that's what I saw on TV I Had to make it rain at 11. That's exactly that's exactly right and so

Jeff Holman (02:40.826)
at 11 you're you're like making rain at all you like

Jerry Brazie (02:51.481)
That was the impetus, but the thing was that they fed me at the end. I'll never forget it. I got club sandwich and they fed me and I got a club sandwich and they piled all the fries in the middle of it. It was the first meal I had ever eaten in a restaurant. So I worked all day for the first meal I ever ate in a restaurant. And I would have, this is, and I'm not lying, because I had no concept really of money when you come from being abject poverty. I would have done the work for that meal.

I would have worked the eight hours in this really busy restaurant washing dishes for that meal. And then at 12 years old, I left that job because IHOP paid me more. So I literally worked for an international house of pancakes at 12 years old, Saturday and Sunday, busy as can be, in the back, sweating it out, washing dishes. And then just every job, I just kept moving to whatever job would pay me more money.

Jeff Holman (03:17.682)
Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Holman (03:30.482)
Really? Wow.

Jeff Holman (03:37.574)
That's amazing. You know, I just want to point out a few parallels here. Although I can't claim they're great parallels. My mom, she wasn't single, but she had three under three. I was the third under three years old. And I thought that was a lot. Five without a co-parent, like that's six. Yeah, wow. And then...

Jerry Brazie (03:56.398)
Six, six, yeah. Six years, five years and under six children.

Jeff Holman (04:03.122)
That's, mean, kudos, women who can do that under whatever circumstances. That's pretty amazing. First off. So

Jerry Brazie (04:05.164)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (04:12.321)
Yeah. My mother's 87 years old, still alive, still lives on, just crazy. She's as strong as can be, it's amazing. She's pissed at her body all the time because it doesn't keep up with the brain. Yep, yep.

Jeff Holman (04:22.59)
Yeah, yeah. Well, well, what does this is totally outside of what I would normally ask, but I'm super curious. What would she say if I were to ask her, Hey, tell me about Jerry. Like what's the one thing she would say about you over all these years? She knows the good and the bad. She's seen you grow up. She's seen you, your successes and everything else. What would she say?

Jerry Brazie (04:27.693)
Sure.

Jerry Brazie (04:43.733)
My mother gave me some.

As you can imagine, when you come from something like that, you start to rebel. I went 10 years without seeing any of my parents from about 17 to 27, 28 years old until I had kids. She gave me some advice that I think she would probably say to anybody, tell me about Jerry. It was advice she gave me when I was 14 years old, 15 years old. My next oldest sister died on her 21st birthday, it or not, when I was 14 years old. She was like a mother to me because she was so close.

Jeff Holman (04:52.9)
yeah.

Jerry Brazie (05:15.584)
And my mother told me the way people react, says it's up to you, but she said your thing is, Jerry, that you're the rock.

that everyone crashes against. That's a very tough responsibility and you need to appreciate that responsibility. And that stuck with me. I as I got older, it became more profound and it made more sense and you become an entrepreneur and that's a singular business in and of itself. You don't get to commiserate, You can have relationships generally, all of those sorts of things, but everything comes to you. And so she was a prophet in that, that everything that I am.

Jeff Holman (05:34.024)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (05:40.264)
Right, right.

Jerry Brazie (05:50.284)
that rock that everyone crashes against, which is really just a good way to explain what an entrepreneur is. So that's exactly right. Yeah.

Jeff Holman (05:57.798)
Yeah, an island of one many times. Yeah, I've worked with so many CEOs. It took me a little while to figure out how lonely it was for them to operate those businesses. You you see them, everybody wants to be in the room. They all laugh when you make a joke, but then they go back to their office and it's, it's, you know, not everybody's on your side and you can't necessarily.

Jerry Brazie (06:07.308)
Yes.

Jeff Holman (06:20.54)
feel comfortable telling everybody the stuff you're going through, telling the employees the business isn't working like they think it is, or the investors that everything isn't, you're not always hitting your mark. That's a tough spot to be in, and you've been doing that your whole life, it sounds like.

Jerry Brazie (06:36.461)
When you get out, when you actually make it too, it's all well and good when you're not doing well, right, as an entrepreneur. When you're doing well, it's all, the people turn against you. And when you come from where I come from, no one wants to see you get out because if you get out, that means it's not the system that's oppressive. means, right, they personal responsibility. So your family doesn't want to see you do well. Your friends don't want you to see you do well. The culture doesn't want to see you do well, right? So not only is it lonely, but there are all these forces on

Jeff Holman (06:42.716)
Okay.

Jeff Holman (06:52.35)
video.

Jeff Holman (06:59.378)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (07:06.415)
on you that you don't even recognize that says, you know, I don't want you to do better. I'm going to pretend like I do. And then as soon as you hit it, right, that's when all the judging starts. I mean, I have friends who will forget. I worked 18 hours a day for four years and didn't get paid the first four years of my business. And I was doing $14 million a year in revenue. I couldn't figure out how to make money. And so they're thinking, oh, you're living this fat cat lifestyle. And I was like, no, I'm an island by myself, right? There's no one to help me. And when you are not making money,

Jeff Holman (07:19.537)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (07:24.914)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (07:34.017)
there are no friends. When you make money, you have friends. When you're not making money, there are no friends. So it's even worse when you hit the tough times. That's when that island really starts to stand out. At least that's been my experience.

Jeff Holman (07:46.3)
Yeah. And I think we're going to talk a little bit about the value of community here in a bit on the show. Reminds me though, my wife and I, when we were first married, we were in a downtown Salt Lake City ward. Salt Lake City is not necessarily full of that much poverty. We were in an area that is known for being a little less well off, had the homeless shelter and other places in it. We lived there. We attended a church on Sundays there and we helped the youth.

Jerry Brazie (07:50.572)
Right.

Jeff Holman (08:12.446)
in this that lived there. You know, we had grown up somewhere else with more means and when we went and we're like, hey, let's talk to the youth about journaling or let's talk to them about work ethic or let's talk about college. I remember one time my wife came home, she was just kind of devastated because she ran in for the first time in her life, she ran into this kind of culture or this attitude or this kind of philosophy. said, Jeff, I just got chewed out by these people. they're like, who do you think you are?

you're telling my kids they should go to college. Why do you think they're better than me? And it was, it was a real eye-opener for us. We, of course, we didn't mean any, anything degrading by it. thought, you know, it doesn't everybody seek these things. Maybe because it had been pounded into our minds. Like you go to college, you do this, you know, there's that pathway. And, and so it, it really, it really shook my wife a bit. And we, you know, we've tried to be a lot more sensitive to it now that we understand there's that.

There's that other side, but that's the side you grew up in, you came from.

Jerry Brazie (09:13.293)
I love that story. mean, I love that your eyes were open that way because.

You know, we watch television and you watch social media and everything looks, you know, it's all up here and politicians are always talking about how they're going to help the poor. I've never heard any politician ever, anything they ever said as someone who comes from that environment did anything that ever helped me. and, and there is, I always said when I'm asked Jerry of all the things you've done, what are you most proud of? My children graduated from high school that I married after 30 years of my children graduated from high school for me from where I come.

Jeff Holman (09:34.067)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (09:46.588)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (09:48.99)
from which is institutional generational poverty and it is impossible to escape because exactly what you said parents the friends the people around you your environment

Jeff Holman (09:52.136)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (10:00.269)
Now today social media, everyone's telling you can't, nothing is your fault and nothing is further from the truth. But when you are inundated with it every single day, all these years later, I'm 56, I haven't lived that life in 40 years. when you are inundated, however many years, for 35 years, when you are inundated with it every day, it's so hard to escape. I ended up ultimately, I got rid of everybody. I had an epiphany at 28 years old, I was running a company and people came to me to start a new company.

Jeff Holman (10:21.203)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (10:30.223)
and I was looking at a pro forma, I didn't know what it was. I knew how to do operations and I was hot stuff with all this, but I didn't know how to do these other things. And I had this epiphany, my son was just born, watershed moment for me. If you don't have children, go have children. Watershed moment for me, my son was born, my first son, and now I have this in front of me and instead of going, I'm gonna fold it up and ignore it because I don't know what it's about, so I'm not going to go there.

Jeff Holman (10:43.496)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (10:53.613)
I leaned into it. I had a voice in my head said, two epiphanies in my life, this was the second one, shut up and listen. If you don't shut up and listen, you're gonna be doing the same thing now, making $50,000 a year when you're 50 years old, that you're doing right now at 28 years old. I mean, it hit me like just a ton of bricks, and I ended up getting rid of all of the people I grew up with, because it makes you evaluate where you come from, and the reality was I was watching sports, talking about sports, playing sports, going to the bar and playing and watching and talking about sports, right? That was essentially my life away

Jeff Holman (11:20.766)
Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Brazie (11:23.607)
from work and I went and found people that were smarter than me and I just shut up and listened and I got rid of all of the people I grew up with for the most part because it's so hard to escape and they don't do it on purpose but they don't want to you do better than they do.

Jeff Holman (11:37.554)
Yeah, that's so counterintuitive because there's this value in community, but if you don't have the right community that fosters the goals that you're working towards, that becomes tough. it's not that the people are bad, but there's an inconsistency between what you're going after, what someone else is going after. Yeah, yeah. know, something else you said caught my attention. I remember listening.

Jerry Brazie (11:57.42)
Right, there's a lot of defensiveness in poverty. Right, it just forces you to be defensive.

Jeff Holman (12:06.726)
I think it was one of the local, you know, there's these, the Utah wealthy families, right, who've made it big. They've done stuff. There's a gentleman, John Huntsman, he's funded schools here and there. he said one time, I think he was talking one time, had a little poke at one of the local senators. He's like, which one of us was poorer growing up? But he made a point that stuck with me. And I don't remember the quote or anything, but he basically said, yeah, he chose to go his direction and be in politics.

to try to make a difference. I chose to be in business where I can make a real difference or something like that, you know, just because the, you know, you're creating jobs, you're, you might be creating generational wealth too, but you have the ability to distribute that and use that in lots and lots of different ways. That's stuck with me from, I don't know, 20 years ago when I, when I listened to him speak at a business class about his upbringing and his philosophies and just the ability to be in business.

creates opportunities if you want to have real impact on the communities that need it the most.

Jerry Brazie (13:15.373)
Yeah.

I agree with that a thousand percent. I'll add to that that many of those guys, many business owners, I know I'm in that in this group, are happy to help and to talk about their businesses and to explain what business is about and give stories and give perspective. But there is a reluctance for people to engage with people. Now that's the Huntsman's earth. But there's a lot of just local entrepreneurs, you walk into their business and want to have some sense of what their world is like. They are happy to talk about it. again, social media and these

days kind of you know it's I saw a Lamborghini so I stopped and take a picture and you know if you're working more than five minutes a week and not making a million bucks a month you're an idiot right that that's kind of the entrepreneur perspective and so when someone comes into the local donut shop and talks to the owner they're gonna get a very different perspective than they do from the guy on South Beach you know talking about his entrepreneur investments you know it's just not the real world and the real world can be very difficult but those guys all business owners love

Jeff Holman (13:55.943)
Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Brazie (14:16.147)
to talk about their business and what they can do to help people that are looking to become entrepreneurs.

Jeff Holman (14:22.12)
Yeah, yeah. People that really want to be in that community. think there's a lot of ends. You just have to approach those people who are there and they probably are lonely people. I don't want to play that up too much, but they're probably happy to engage in a deliberate conversation about the thing they're building and the struggles they've been through. I that's what this podcast is about, right? I've seen so many CEOs going through this. I'm like, we need a show that just focuses on what are those struggles?

And one of those breakout moments that people are achieving because it's everyone relates, right?

Jerry Brazie (14:57.325)
100 % and I have talked to, I don't know how many entrepreneurs, I can't keep track, I'm gonna say 100, but it's way more than that.

I've talked to and I've been part of a group, peer-to-peer group now for 20 plus years. And the thing is, that regardless of the size of the entrepreneur, we all think that the mistakes we're making or the struggles that we're having or the issues that are going on, it's just us. And so, you know, many of us are men. And so you're like, well, I'm not going to talk about it because I can't look stupid and I'm not going to be the only idiot. But the reality is the business right next to yours is having the same exact problems is going. I I have, I have counseled so many companies.

Jeff Holman (15:20.604)
Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Brazie (15:35.01)
with the same problem after the same problem after the same problem. The first thing I tell them is, you know what? The guy I talked to yesterday has the same exact problem that you have. And the guy I'm going to talk to tomorrow has the same problem that you're having. And so there's this idea that there's some newer, better, faster, more efficient way to do it. And reality is just, I mean, that might work for the very few at the very top, but reality is very different for those of us that are on the ground banging out of living every day.

Jeff Holman (15:43.475)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (16:01.49)
Yeah, no, you nailed it on the head for sure. Well, I want to get into, want to hear, let's go through a couple of mile posts in your career, maybe hit some highlights. And then I want to hear more about building community and, you know, maybe we'll focus in on some type of breakout moment that you've been through or that you've seen somebody else go through it. And I think that to me is going to be an awesome show just to get through those things here. And of course, anything else you want to add, you know, time is yours.

Jerry Brazie (16:31.499)
Let's, the first thing I like.

I to understand my story is my background. I'll give two very specific instances. When I was 14, I went blind and my sister died at 13. When I was 13, she was turning 21. She died. Six months later, I went blind in my right eye. The virus ate my retina. I had surgery to keep my eye. I still have my eye. They thought maybe someday down the road, this is very rudimentary, someday down the road, we might have enough science to put it back. So I'm blind in my right eye and almost lost my

Jeff Holman (16:44.55)
Okay, yeah.

Jeff Holman (16:50.579)
Really.

Jerry Brazie (17:04.239)
left eye but I was able to keep it I wear contacts and have correct lenses and can make that so so that year for me at 14 years old was a tough year and then I was getting some money out of ATM and in those days and when you come from poverty and you have something a card with your name on it I remember very well US Bank and this is ATMs weren't even a big thing today nobody would even understand it you have the art my age to understand it but having that and I go and I took 80 bucks you had to leave five dollars in the bank I took 80 bucks out well I know better I'm a street kid

Jeff Holman (17:12.424)
Wow.

Jerry Brazie (17:34.112)
I come from, you know, I got that background that tells me to be careful when I wasn't. I got jumped at the bus stop, they took my wallet, they took my money, and they broke two ribs, broke my nose, and left me underneath the bus stop, underneath the bench, left me for dead. I wake up a couple hours later, I get out from under it, take, long story short, I take a bus, I'm bleeding down my front, both eyes are black, I I look like I just got rolled, which is exactly what happened.

Jeff Holman (17:47.923)
Wow.

Jerry Brazie (17:57.038)
I have to transfer right to another bus. Now again, I've been taking buses since I was five years old, so I know how to move around the city. Now I get off and I have a two-mile walk, Portland to Oregon, going over the interstate, interstate 84. If I go back, I have business back there, so I spend one week a month back in Portland. live in Tennessee. And I don't know, every two or three months, I go to this square. It's still the same oversized sidewalk square right before you go over the freeway. I'm doing this two-mile walk, beating to hell.

Jeff Holman (18:18.769)
Really.

Jerry Brazie (18:24.435)
and there was some duplex to my right and out of the duplex someone screams it's all your fault.

And I turned again, I'm beaten up, right? And I'm this close to death and I'm just dragging myself home. But there's no one there. And so, Jeff, I've told the story a thousand times. God is my witness on my children's eyes. I had a voice outside of my head, behind me to the right. I thought it was somebody yelling at me through a duplex that said, everything is your fault. So of course, after I kind of think back to myself, I started arguing with this voice and I said, how's any, I just got rolled my only 80 bucks I have, I got nothing, right?

Jeff Holman (18:46.152)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (18:53.267)
Really?

Jerry Brazie (19:02.615)
another in the long laundry list of things that have gone on in my very short 14 years.

Jeff Holman (19:05.981)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (19:07.725)
It's not my fault and the voice said everything's your fault. If you don't take responsibility for everything that goes on going forward, you're going to be just like everyone around you. That was it. Now, I don't know if it was Jimmy Cricket. I don't know if it was it was God. I don't know in my conscious. I can't tell you what I can tell you. was outside of my head. So much so I thought someone was yelling at me out the window of this duplex. I go back there all of these years later, 40 years later, because it had so much impact on my life. It wasn't a hockey stick.

Jeff Holman (19:16.445)
Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Brazie (19:34.776)
But it taught me a very important lesson, particularly where you come from, where I come from, which is everything is your fault. And so I started this, it didn't take right away, but by the time I was 28 and I had my son, it was time to go start my own business for the first time. Everything is your fault really started to take hold and it became my mantra. And so as we go through my story and what I'm all about, it all starts with that.

Again, whatever it was. My nose was broken. have a little nubbin on my nose now. I went home for three days because there's no one there waiting for me. I held my nose shut for three days until it stopped opening up. Then I knew I was okay. That was it. Two broken ribs that still give me trouble to this day. that everything is your fault. I just moved that right into business and work and everything else I did. Like I said, first job at 11, I've never not had a job. I paid taxes every year since I was 11 years old. And I just did it like everything was my fault. And when everything is your fault, it makes very

Jeff Holman (20:06.044)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (20:11.082)
gosh. Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (20:30.209)
difficult things easier. It doesn't make them easy but it makes it easier. So I've made mistakes. I've had people on my behalf make mistakes that cost me seven figures.

Jeff Holman (20:33.736)
Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Brazie (20:40.461)
and it's my fault. I was not pissed off at them at all. I wish it didn't happen. I've made seven figures on my own. would I have a seven figure mistake on my own? Why would I, you know, how am I any better than them? The point being, and that's a fantastical point, know, the small ones every day that really benefit you when everything is your fault. So I look at it go, why did I put somebody in place or how did I put them in place or what things did I not have in place to stop that from happening? Why didn't I know I gave somebody the power to

cost me so much money. And you can do that at that large scale or at that small scale. But really, as I tell my story, it starts on that epiphany after getting beaten and robbed.

that everything is my fault and that has just become absolutely my mantra over all of these years as I not only work in my own businesses and I operate my three operating companies as we speak, but also with anybody else that I'm helping either business-wise or also in life. I've been married for 30 years, I got three great kids, my life couldn't be any better if I tried. Coming where I come from, everything is your fault, it's my fault, has just proven to be the best advice I ever gave myself, I suppose. Yeah.

Jeff Holman (21:46.866)
Yeah, that's amazing. You turned it, I mean, because I think a lot of people would be like, no, it's not. It's not my fault. All these things. But you've turned this into an empowering position. This isn't debilitating for you, it sounds like. This is empowering you to do the things that you do.

Jerry Brazie (22:03.328)
It wasn't a hot...

It wasn't a hockey stick, right? So it took me years to kind of comprehend what I was doing. But what I always say is I am who I am because of where I come from and in spite of where I come from. So often we want to say if it wasn't for I would have done right. If it wasn't for this thing, I would have done that thing. And I was surrounded by that. When you grow up in that environment from my earliest memories, I'm surrounded by everything is somebody else's fault. And so I think it was a combination of

Jeff Holman (22:06.75)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (22:20.593)
Mm-hmm.

Jerry Brazie (22:34.391)
Again, the state I was in and kind of the influences I had, I had older brothers and sisters who kind of, none of us went the right direction and I didn't take off. I I spent time in jail and I did all of those things and I got into trouble. But I kept my head above water with always that thing in my head that said, okay, it's my fault, but I gotta kind of come to some sort of idea with that. Coupled with food equals or work equals food. 11 years old, club sandwich, I would have done it for free. And so I always went to work.

Jeff Holman (22:59.206)
Mm-hmm.

Jerry Brazie (23:04.271)
I've never missed a day of work. I'm 56 years old. I've taken days off, but I've never missed a day of work. I've been sick. But food equals work, or work equals food. And when work equals food, combined with everything is your fault.

Jeff Holman (23:12.595)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (23:16.365)
It gives yourself a chance. There's no guarantee, but it greatly increased my chances of climbing out of where I was, which is I have no education. I read an article at 20 years old that said I needed to buy a mortgage. I didn't know what a mortgage was. I didn't know what an interest rate was. Again, I was living with hookers and heroin addicts at 17 years old in a $25 a week flop house. I have a 16 year old education, right? And so I didn't know what a mortgage was and I didn't know what equity was. But I read this article. So I bought an $87,000 house at 12 and a half percent.

Jeff Holman (23:30.76)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Holman (23:35.612)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (23:46.409)
I used that house three times in the next decade to finance to cash flow my business to help it grow as I was growing as fast as I did when I finally went out to start on my own at 28.

Jeff Holman (23:57.342)
just from reading that about, you should have a mortgage.

Jerry Brazie (24:00.705)
Correct. I read a story that said you should buy, I was enthralled with business and so I always had like a Fortune magazine or a Forbes magazine. I was a voracious reader, voracious. One of my superpowers was the amount that I read. So I had a general interest in things that I didn't understand. Now I wouldn't talk to you about it because no, no, no, I might be wrong, I may not know what I'm talking about, I got a strut, know, all of those things when you're younger.

Jeff Holman (24:09.534)
you

Jeff Holman (24:23.752)
Sure, sure,

Jerry Brazie (24:26.827)
But I could read it and nobody would know that I didn't understand. I could go back a page and reread it again so I understood it. So I had this kind of natural interest and I only read things that were true. I never read fiction books or any of those things. I just stuck to what I liked and that kind of lent itself to business for the most part. I was just kind of enthralled with how things worked, which is a kid from the streets is not something you would typically do, but I would be quick to grab the Wall Street Journal. had a job as a messenger and if there was a Wall Street Journal in an office, you know, in a lawyer's

I'll just I'll snap that that snap that thing and give me something to read

Jeff Holman (25:00.242)
Yeah, they weren't reading anyways. I mean, you've got, you might have, you know, one of the most powerful combinations that not, not everybody has or realize they have, but if I were just from hearing your story, from where you came from, how you, how you are, like you've got, you've got the grit and street smarts, if I can call it that. You've got, you've got the, the attitude of learning and you've got what, what my good friend tells me, I have a problem with sometimes and that's hyper accountability.

Jerry Brazie (25:18.199)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (25:28.69)
You know, when you got a really accountable person who sees that they can manage their own life and then they love to learn stuff, when you learn that stuff, you've got to put it into action to make yourself accountable and you're great at action because that's what grit is. Grit is just the ability to get past out of your own head and, you know, take that action. You had to because that's how you ate, right? That's how you survived. That's a super powerful combination.

Jerry Brazie (25:47.127)
Yes.

Jeff Holman (25:56.21)
Like, is that something that you thought of consciously? You're like, hey, like I've got these superpowers or these abilities, or is it something that just kind of stayed with you and has evolved and you've kind of drawn that out over time?

Jerry Brazie (26:09.547)
The hyper accountability starts at that epiphany, at that beaten down epiphany at 14 years old. It took hold at 28 years old when I had a son at home that was a few months old. I'd started looking at the world when my son was born 180 degrees differently than I had prior to him. I literally the second he came out, my world changed and I started to view my responsibilities and my capabilities and the things that I wanted to go do in a way. I mean, I was this tough, rough.

Jeff Holman (26:12.477)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (26:27.516)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (26:37.485)
been a hundred fight six foot four, 240 pound monster, right? That just wanted to make money and work and that's all I cared about and I was driven like nothing else. And then my son was born and I realized I had powers that I had that I couldn't comprehend. I wanted for somebody else rather than myself. that insular selfish world, which is all right. I only had to take care of myself before that. There's nothing wrong with that, right? But you're only looking out for yourself. But when I started to live for someone else and I had a purpose that was my son,

Now all of these, we'll call them superpowers, I do all of the time, perspective, right? Like I said, always taking responsibility. These superpowers really came into view and I was like, I'm ready to risk it. I'm ready to risk, I am not risk averse at all because...

Jeff Holman (27:12.156)
Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Brazie (27:22.413)
You come from where I come from, man, I know how to climb back out and I've done it. I've made fortunes and I've lost fortunes and I've rebounded from losing fortunes because I know how to survive and I know how to come back and I know what the bottom is and even when I have lost them, I'm nowhere near the bottom relative to where I come from. And so.

Jeff Holman (27:22.812)
You've seen it, you've seen it.

Jeff Holman (27:36.84)
Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Brazie (27:39.182)
Really, my son being born, I had a half-built house at home and I got this prospectus in front of me could change my fortunes going forward. And that was really that second epiphany that said shut up and listen and pay attention. Combine that with now I know what happened at 14 years old, now it makes sense. 14 years later, I get what that voice was trying to tell me all that time ago and it of just really coagulated. So much so.

is I grew that business, I was the front of the business, I was selling it, they were financing it. I did $3 million the first year. I told them I'd do $3 million, I did $3 million the first year, they didn't have the money for it. So they fired me.

Jeff Holman (28:16.458)
What was the business? What was the nature of the business? Okay.

Jerry Brazie (28:18.86)
Transportation. So we're doing messenger courier work around the state of Oregon, Portland and around the state of Oregon. Three million dollars we had, I don't about 90 employees. Business is doing, making money, but there's not enough cash flow for that kind of growth, particularly from a standstill. Another caveat, I had no idea what cash flow was. So I'm one year into it, I have no idea. I've never heard the term before, I didn't know what was.

Jeff Holman (28:36.062)
You

Jerry Brazie (28:39.667)
And so they'd come in fire me because there's not enough cash flow, whatever that meant. But now I've got all those street smarts. I have all that background. I have the stories that I've told you here and other stories that I've been stabbed, like I said, and beaten multiple other times. But all of that kind of came together at 29 years old when they fired me. That's really when everything started to kind of fire on all cylinders. And I said, I know how this game's played. I got it now.

Jeff Holman (28:54.035)
Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Holman (29:04.893)
So wait, you're running this business at $3 million a year, there's cashflow issues, all of our growth stage CEOs know what that means, because it's like, they just go to investors oftentimes and like, hey, can you plug this cashflow issue? Because I'm still trying to grow. But you just had your kid at 28, I think you said, right? And so the next year, you're like, I've got all these powers and I know where I want to go. And then next year it's like, hey, by the way, no job.

Jerry Brazie (29:12.908)
Yes.

Jerry Brazie (29:20.907)
Yes. Yep.

Jerry Brazie (29:29.293)
That's right. That's right. quit. had a half built house where we were remodeling when my son was born. I quit my job to start a new business and I started refereeing basketball games four or five nights a week to pay the bills while I was working on this business that I'm supposed to get a salary out of, but I never did. Invaluable. Best year I ever spent getting fired and going through all that and moving customers and doing all of those things. Just the absolute, the horror.

Jeff Holman (29:42.078)
Uh-huh.

Jerry Brazie (29:54.382)
that that would be for anyone else, I'm telling you what, there's no college in the world will teach anyone what I learned in that one year, period. Because then I took all that, and now my son, my wife's pregnant again, so I have a daughter that's two years younger than my son, but I have my son at home, and it's time to go out and start my own. And so I went to all of my six customers, four banks, two title companies, that I had just moved a year before, and I went to them and said I got fired. This was 17 days later, and I want you to move.

Jeff Holman (30:00.722)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (30:22.002)
Same line of business though, you're, okay.

Jerry Brazie (30:23.755)
Same line of business, I'm gonna go start my own. I'm gonna go compete against, of course they sued me and I didn't know what the lawsuit was either. I mean, I had some sense of it, but I'd never been involved in one. Of course they sued me, but I didn't care. And I went six for six telling them I need you to move them, not just move with me like you did six months or you did a year ago, I need you to prepay me. Banks.

Jeff Holman (30:42.605)
yeah. Cash flow.

Jerry Brazie (30:45.333)
And I got all six. I figured out what cash flow was real quick. I figured out why I got fired. This thing I didn't understand. I get it. And they prepaid me and they prepaid me for a decade before I finally went to them and said, I don't know why the hell you guys still prepaid me. We can do away with this. But my reputation was such the job that I did was such their attention to detail. They knew that not only did they move the first time, but they moved the second time. And I didn't know, Jeff, that you didn't get prepaid. I was just like, need cash flow. I got nobody to go to for

Jeff Holman (30:50.813)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (30:59.397)
wow.

Jerry Brazie (31:15.277)
cash.

I'm gonna go to the people I know who have money because they've been paying me for the last year and all of the years previous to that. I'm gonna go to them. And so the answer to the question never asked is always no. I didn't know this at the time. I was just in my naivete. Again, I'm a kid from the streets. I'm just gonna go ask questions, have lunches. And I went six for six. And I financed the business. was about 350 grand a month out of six customers that they prepaid me. And that's how I went and started the next business. Of course, the one I left quickly went off into oblivion.

This is still in operation today and it's done, I don't know, 250 odd million dollars, give or take over the last 25 years.

Jeff Holman (31:54.39)
That's amazing. Yeah, sometimes ignorance is a blessing, right? We hear that a lot. People are like, you get entrenched and maybe that's a little bit like, you get all these people, like my wife and I who grew up, we didn't have the same issues. We didn't grow up with the same exposure perhaps. And like, it was our ignorance that other people had bigger issues than us. Whereas, you know,

Jerry Brazie (32:02.155)
Yes.

Jerry Brazie (32:20.812)
Yes.

Jeff Holman (32:22.942)
I think a lot of people approach situations if you don't know what you don't know, you just, why not? Why not try that? Try the new thing, do the thing that works. And I think that's where lot of innovation comes from, right? It's just these people, you are just saying, well, what's a better way to do it? Why wouldn't we do it this way? You just ask for it and then you get what you, you kind of get what you ask for a lot of times right or wrong.

Jerry Brazie (32:47.763)
I didn't know that businesses didn't do $3 million a year their first year in business. I had no idea.

Jeff Holman (32:54.782)
There. Yep. I think I read a stat just this week. It was like, 1 % of us businesses do more than a million dollars a year. And that's today. Today's dollars. Like that's

Jerry Brazie (33:03.903)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I think the average is four to six hundred grand if I'm not mistaken for you know the 30 million odd businesses that are are that are small businesses in America. I think it's four to six hundred grand and so I didn't know that doing fourteen million dollars in your fourth year was a big deal except people kept coming at me and treating me a certain way and asking me questions that I didn't even know the answers to that I theoretically should have known. I mean the things that I didn't know I mean had I known better I don't know if it would have pre-

Jeff Holman (33:13.874)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (33:36.064)
me from doing it but I just didn't have any sense one way or the other and ignorance

I will say that ignorance is bliss when coupled with a just an unimaginable will to succeed and a will to do well and a will to push and a stubbornness and a willing to put in the effort and the work and a willingness to be wrong. When you combine those things with ignorance, you can go a long way. The flip side of that though, and this is the other thing, is when I started making money is when I started costing myself the most money. Because when you start making money and the money starts to pour in,

Jeff Holman (34:07.646)
Hmm.

Jerry Brazie (34:11.67)
you're not paying attention all of sudden the cars get nicer and your life changes a little bit and those perspectives start to soften around the edges you know those hardness start to soften around the edges and I lost my way for a while and it cost me in inordinate amounts of money because I was making a lot of money but I could have been making a whole lot more money but you know you kind of get soft and you fall back on your laurels at least I did after after what I had been through and so that's

Jeff Holman (34:17.063)
Yep. Yep.

Jerry Brazie (34:41.071)
That is a lesson for everybody else, also is always remaining sharp. But here's the superpower through all of that is perspective. I never forget where I come from. I never forget how hard it is. I never forget what life can be like. And so when I'm faced with something tough or, I mean, I've had $200,000 payrolls due on Monday and it's Friday and I have no money in the bank. More times than I would like to admit.

Jeff Holman (35:01.062)
Yep, yeah. That's.

for a hyper accountable person being responsible for everybody else's payroll and not having the money, that's tough.

Jerry Brazie (35:11.341)
It's.

It's the worst. It's the worst. But it is reality. And so when you're there, way that you, Jared, how in the world do you deal with that? And I said, I'll tell you exactly how I deal with it. I stole food to eat as a child. Right? So this problem is either overcomable and I'm going to throw everything at it that I can, or it's not. And if it's not, then I will deal with whatever that throws at me. And I will deal with that because when I was 19 years old, I got mugged behind a bowling alley and they put a 10 inch screwdriver trying to put it into my liver.

and it got stuck in the muscle in my back. And I took care of that problem and I got out of it and I went home to this crappy little apartment I had that I was paying 700 square feet and I laid in the bathtub on a Friday night in warm water and it took me six hours reaching behind me with my left hand to slowly pull this 10 inch screwdriver out of my back. I wrapped my

Jeff Holman (35:44.691)
What?

Jeff Holman (36:00.978)
This is a real story. Jerry, this sounds.

Jerry Brazie (36:02.637)
It's a thousand percent real story. Yeah, I was walking out of the, was a couple of light oceans. I lived in Portland, Oregon and they'd come over the, what we call the boat people, right? They were leaving the Camille Rouge and the Killing Fields through the seventies and the eighties. And they moved into the kind of the poor neighborhood that I lived in. So they were pool players and I was a pool player and I'm smarter than I was. But again, you let your guard down a little bit. I'm 19 years old. I take them from Somani. I had gotten in a fight with them a few months earlier.

Jeff Holman (36:14.009)
huh, huh.

Jerry Brazie (36:30.829)
So I just wasn't smart enough not to go back. And they caught me, it comes out of a, it was called Sandy Lanes, I've heard down about 10 years ago and I'm walking out the back and we all parked in the fish, they had a fish restaurant, we all parked in the fish restaurant, came in this little back. But the problem was it was like an alleyway to get into the back of this bowling alley. I take their money, a couple of them ran out or one of them ran out front, one of them followed me. I didn't pay attention to the one following me. So I got the guy in front of me.

And in those days you would carry weapons, would be like a sharpened 10 inch very thin screwdriver or even a regular screwdriver that you would sharpen down. So if you got pulled over or the cops got a hold you, you just have a screwdriver, right? You don't have a weapon, you just have a screwdriver. And so they're going to get their money back plus whatever I have. And they caught me in this little back alley as I'm going down to my car and I get the guy in front of me. And here's, here's, here's, here's divine intervention. This is the way that I explain this. I've always said I'm blind in my right eye. I went blind at 14 years old.

Jeff Holman (37:05.969)
Okay.

Jeff Holman (37:13.544)
the alleyway.

Jerry Brazie (37:24.301)
The guy coming from behind me, sensed him as I'm engaging with the guy in front of me. And instead of turning to my right, I'm right handed. And instead of turning that way, I turned left. Because I can't see out of my right eye. And I turned left. Well, as I turned, he was going to put the 10 inch screwdriver into my liver. He's coming in on my right side. He's going to put it. But I turned this way. And so it came into my back. It got stuck in the muscle. The tip of it just popped through kind of front here left, front here right. And he couldn't pull it out because the muscle grabbed ahold of it.

Jeff Holman (37:53.06)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jerry Brazie (37:54.318)
and he couldn't pull it out. So I got out of that. They were smaller than me, thank God. And I didn't know I'd been stabbed. I left them there and I get in the car and I had to drive in this really crappy car and I had a clutch and I have to work the clutch and something's not right. And it was facing that direction so I couldn't reach it. And by the time I got home, now I'm in pain because I'm down, right? And now I know something's not right.

Jeff Holman (37:56.018)
That's...

Jeff Holman (38:11.624)
Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Brazie (38:20.973)
and I get in and sure enough it's a ten inch screwdriver that was hanging at an angle out of my back and so I would over six hours as I wasn't bleeding profusely. Again, I'm a street kid, I know what blood looks like. And so I knew that I wasn't in trouble. You're not going to go to the cops. I've seen multiple murders in my lifetime right in front of me. I know the rules.

Jeff Holman (38:30.942)
Sure.

Jeff Holman (38:39.142)
you don't go to the hospital. it a rule you don't go to the hospital?

Jerry Brazie (38:42.965)
No, know, poor people don't go to the hospital, right? When I was a kid, you didn't go to the hospital. I mean, just, again, my broken nose, I went home and held it shut because you just didn't go to the hospital. I'd never been to the dentist until I was 30. I'd never been to a dentist, right? mean, there's just not things that you, when you live in poverty, it's just not things that you do, you don't think about. I mean, when you're worried every day about what you're gonna eat the next day, going to a doctor or a dentist or any of those things is all so hard for us. Uh-uh, no.

Jeff Holman (38:47.355)
Okay.

I'm revealing my ignorance here again.

Okay, okay.

Jeff Holman (39:05.532)
Yeah, that's not even on your agenda. Okay, okay, fair enough.

Jerry Brazie (39:10.797)
But legit, I'm gonna say I probably didn't even know what a dentist was until I was 20 years old. I'm not gonna lie. I probably had no sense of what that was. But so long story short, I'm laying in the bathtub and it took me about six hours and I'm reaching behind with this hand and I could only move it a little bit at a time until I finally got it out. And again, I'm not bleeding profusely straight into the muscle. I tape it up really tight. I put the only towel I have around it. I go to bed Monday morning. I was working at a place called McAdam Carpet Warehouse taking carpet off of a with a forklift pulling it out and cutting it.

Jeff Holman (39:15.219)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (39:40.258)
and I was at work Monday morning. So when you live through that and you have those kind of stories, my perspective is $200,000 payroll, that's a mountain, that sucks. I wish I didn't have to deal with that, but I do. And Monday's going to come and what can I figure out? Well, these days it's checks and I've got two or three days to float at least. that gives me till Wednesday. All right, who do I know that I can get 50 Gs from on Wednesday? Cause I got money coming, I just don't have it yet, right? So.

You get contacts and you know people. And I got a guy who had a payroll due on Friday that loaned me 50 grand for four days that week to make, you know, to kind of get me over the, over the hump. The point being I didn't freak out. I didn't go crazy because I have this crazy perspective on life. I never forget what's important and it helps you deal with the problems even when they go wrong. When I've lost the most money, it is my, I'm as excited, I'm as calm when I lose.

Jeff Holman (40:16.028)
Wow.

Jerry Brazie (40:36.011)
and have made huge mistakes and I've fought with the government, I've had all kinds of issues as when I make huge upside and I have tremendous success. I kind of treat it all the same way.

Jeff Holman (40:46.204)
Yeah, man, I, I want to co-opt a little bit of this and I want to be like, next time I have struggles, I'm gonna be like, well, it's, it's not a shake in the liver. I'll be fine.

Jerry Brazie (40:54.285)
Yeah, that could be worse. It could be a shake in the liver. That's exactly right. Yeah.

Jeff Holman (41:03.742)
That's amazing, Jerry. mean, people don't go through that, right? At least as far as I know. My world, my community, that's not, this is outside my experience. But maybe that's why, you you've done a lot. You've earned a lot, you've lost a lot, you've built companies, you're running companies. Like that translates into...

a very valuable skill set, doesn't it? mean, not just to run your own companies, but we were talking before about being able to build a community and being a part of a community. like a lot of, as I think about communities, a lot of things you get from community, in addition to some camaraderie and maybe a feeling of comfort and safety that you're with people that you know, you know, you trust them, but I think communities where they're really valuable.

Again, this show is trying to do the same thing as you join a community and you get perspective. You get to see around corners that you haven't been around, but somebody else has been around those. You mentioned you were part of that group for 20 years, a mentor group, the peer group. How do your life stories fit into a group like that? I assume you showed up and you're like...

you guys haven't been, you guys haven't been stabbed or shot or.

Jerry Brazie (42:26.221)
Oh, that's so good, Jeff. I got a story right up there real quick. I joined the group, I'll tell that story in a second, but when I'm in the group and the group starts to know me, the group is you get together once a month, everybody gets a half an hour, you talk about your business, there's eight to 10 guys, so it's half a day every day, and they act as your board. Absolutely invaluable, we'll come back to that.

Jeff Holman (42:43.196)
Yeah. Great mastermind format, right?

Jerry Brazie (42:45.785)
It's fat. Yeah more of a peer-to-peer than you know, one guy kind of preaching to 200 people It's it's on the ground dealing with problems that you have every single day But I'll come back to that the story is I'm there for a couple of years and finally these guys you these I'm 30 years old and my business was bigger than theirs But they had a ton more that didn't mean anything They knew way more than I did and as we're talking I'm gonna make us three or four years in and and one of the older guys he was about 60th time still alive in his 80s now and he says Jerry

Jeff Holman (42:49.469)
Uh-huh.

Jeff Holman (42:53.278)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (43:02.472)
Okay.

Jerry Brazie (43:15.599)
You understand, none of us have ever been in a fight. There's seven guys sitting around the table. We all went to college. Everybody went to college. You're the abnormal one. The things you're talking about. Oh, I did.

Jeff Holman (43:25.384)
Did that blow your mind just like it kind of blows my mind with these stories you're telling me?

Jerry Brazie (43:30.133)
I had never, I didn't realize that my story was different.

I thought, because when you're a kid and you're poor, you don't know you're poor. When you're eight years old, you don't know you're poor. When you're scamming for stealing candy bars to eat, you and your little brother, you don't realize that everyone doesn't do this. You just think that everyone does this because this is the life that you have. with all humility, as I got into my 30s, I didn't realize that you could be successful without getting punched in the face or shanked behind a bowling alley.

Jeff Holman (43:40.626)
Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Holman (43:51.836)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (44:03.55)
you

Jerry Brazie (44:04.461)
And so as my kids though now are young and I'm talking about my kids and I'm worried about them not you know getting punched in the face and that's when they were all like whoa we all went to college and we went to Oregon and Oregon State and our parents had businesses or some of them had bootstrapped it but you know they were like I've never even been in a fight none of us have and you don't need that to be successful and it really was a turning point for me in the way that I not only

looked at life but also how I was raising my kids because I thought that you had to get hit upside your head a dozen times right because that's where mine comes from right that's where who I am but the reality was very different I'm the I'm the anomaly but that's why I talk about this the way that I do so openly and I tell my stories the way I do because I want people to have some understanding that if you don't have the problems that I did growing up fantastic go get yours and do what you can if you did have things like I grew up it doesn't mean that you don't have the same

Jeff Holman (44:38.534)
Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Brazie (45:01.007)
opportunities that the guy that does that did have the opportunities or had an easier whatever it is because again on the poor side like we talked about but again you're always trying to Everyone's trying to hold you back. Everyone's trying to hold you down. And so I want people to know no

You, like most billionaires, right? What 70-some billionaires are self-made. Like so many people that make it big in America, it doesn't matter where you start. It does not matter at all. That's not been my experience. I've hired 10,000 people. I've never asked where someone went to school or what's on their paperwork, what kind of degree they have. I never have them. All of the executives that have ever worked for me, I couldn't tell you where they went to college because I hire street smarts, people that can think on their feet. I can teach what I want them to know, but that underlying kind

Jeff Holman (45:25.534)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (45:45.181)
Mm-hmm.

Jerry Brazie (45:47.455)
sense of the world and the way that things work, that's the most valuable part. used, for years, I used programs that I learned, Stock in the Freezer and McDonald's when I was 16 years old, when they were paying me $2.40 an hour in my businesses today. And McDonald's paid me to learn those things. Rather than me looking at it as a $2.40 an hour, or whatever, how much money I made when I was 16 years old, three bucks an hour, they paid me for that. And I took that and I applied.

Jeff Holman (46:03.859)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (46:16.399)
that at the next job and I took what I learned at the next job and I applied it to the next job until the jobs were my jobs. And now I applied all of that knowledge that I had to the things that I was doing. When I started my own business, I had more education than, I don't care where you went to college, what business degree you got. When I started my business at 29 after they fired me after year one, I had more knowledge about how business worked than anybody graduating from any business school in the country.

Jeff Holman (46:40.336)
yeah. Yep. Yeah. The classical NBA, NBA jokes, you know, those, those apply and I've got my MBA. think it was a valuable experience for me, but, but it's a totally different experience than, you know, then, then, then running your business, getting fired for cashflow. And you're like, that's what cashflow is. Not just, it's not just, not just a number on the pro forma is that that is like, that's your job is to make sure cash is coming in at the right, at the right time for the right things. That's.

Jerry Brazie (46:45.228)
Yes.

Jerry Brazie (46:57.901)
Right.

Jerry Brazie (47:04.493)
Right.

Jeff Holman (47:09.66)
Yeah, you can't you can't learn it more deeply than that.

Jerry Brazie (47:10.797)
And that's the message. And education is important and I don't want to sound like I'm poo-pooing education at all because I'm not. But the reality is perspective is what's critical. So if you can combine summers working as an intern every single year that you're going to school, you're going to learn more as an intern than you're going to learn on the books. And so that when you come out, if you have that knowledge about what the real world looks like,

Jeff Holman (47:19.696)
no.

Jeff Holman (47:23.645)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (47:37.324)
you're going to be that much more effective. What I have lived through, what I lived through, went and got an MBA and then went out in the world. Would I have been even more successful? Probably. Right? Probably. Yeah. I would have made contacts and things like that that I didn't otherwise. Probably. But I have no complaints whatsoever. And the knowledge that I gained having zero education is available to everyone. More so today than there's no internet when I started. There's no computers. We did everything by paper.

Jeff Holman (47:46.188)
Perhaps, perhaps, yeah.

Jeff Holman (48:02.802)
Yeah, yeah.

Well, so how does somebody who's running a business, let's take a, you know, I don't know, 20 something, let's call them a 28 year old, because that's where you were. 28 year old, they've started a business, they've seen some success, maybe they're doing $3 million a year or $3 million a month or something. A lot of these businesses, there's so much opportunity out there. They haven't had your life experience. What's a tip or two that you'd give them, you know, without having to go through some of those experiences? What would you say, hey, this is

Jerry Brazie (48:13.729)
Yep.

Jeff Holman (48:34.632)
Like watch out for this or, or, you know, be aware of these things. Where do you apply this life experience to the scaling CEO CEOs or these younger people who are probably now coming to you and saying, Hey, tell me what you did. How do I, how do I follow your path? You were following the path of these now 80 year olds that in your mentor group, how do they follow your path?

Jerry Brazie (48:59.52)
I would

The first, this answer to this question has changed over the last 15 or 20 years as I look back on it. It's typically framed to me, if I could go back, what would I tell myself? Right, different as you're starting business, same sort of question. And the number one thing for me is, and it's getting worse every day, what I tell new entrepreneurs or even existing ones that just don't know is the government at every level is your enemy. And so you need to view the government as your enemy at every level, regardless of what you're doing.

more aware that the government wasn't on my side but was actively working against me in many cases. Up to today I have a 38 lot subdivision I've been working on for three years I can't get the thing off the ground. Oregon law is one thing, county law is another. Oregon law takes precedent over county law. The county law says I don't care sue me. I still own more three years behind. It cost me a quarter million dollar carry every year. That's just... the government is not...

Jeff Holman (49:49.416)
Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Holman (49:54.14)
Yep. My, my father's in real estate, has been for 45 years. That's, that's a business. Yep.

Jerry Brazie (49:59.758)
So you know. Yeah, you know. But I can take that and apply that to every single business I have ever had, every deal I have ever had. The government makes it. You just need to understand that they are not your friends and that your job is to make sure that you understand what they're about.

Well as you can don't make any assumptions don't listen to people who think they know talk to experience This is where we're get to the peer-to-peer group and this one that I've that I've started why they're so important because they'll give you Perspective that you don't have listen to that so I know that seems out of left field Maybe that's probably not an answer you've ever gotten, but if I could go back and understand

that the government is actively working against me at every level for my success, I would have had an easier time, not making it easy, or it's still been going really hard, but I would have had an easier time navigating that had I been aware of that. So that would be the number.

one thing and then the number two thing is exactly what we talked about earlier. I knew how to sell and I've always said anyone can sell. Selling is the, let me finish because I think any CEO is going, what is he talking about? Selling is easy. There's nothing to it. Selling profitable is damn near impossible. Right? So we can all sell at cost. Everyone can do that.

Jeff Holman (51:12.622)
yes, yes.

Jerry Brazie (51:18.635)
you want to try to sell profitably, that's where it gets really difficult and that's where cash flow also comes into play. so make sure that you're making money and don't take any assumptions. This is basic one-on-one business. I understand. And it's probably the same answer that every CEO you've talked to, we all give the same answer.

Jeff Holman (51:36.839)
Nope, nope.

Jerry Brazie (51:37.76)
It is absolutely the lifeblood of a business when it's early or when it's in the late stages. If you are not making money, if you can't figure out where you're making money, if you don't know why you're losing money, if you don't know why the cash flow isn't where it is, if you haven't done your projections, if you don't have a budget, if you're not following along something, it doesn't have to be to the nat's ass. It can be just broadly have an idea and you're not hitting that idea. You're in trouble. You just don't see it. And conversely, if you're making money, you can always make more money.

Jeff Holman (52:04.275)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah. And so many people need today, know, a couple of years ago, it was not as much this way, but now we're seeing a lot more people, even investors saying, hey, unit economics, we need profitability, we need to see that the business actually works as a business. And a lot of that gets hidden, especially in these scaling companies where, you know, you layer on an investor model onto your operating model.

Jerry Brazie (52:07.663)
So pretend like you're poor.

Jerry Brazie (52:23.842)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (52:36.176)
and now you can hide those gaps. They say sales solves or sales hides a multitude of sins, right? I think investment is the bandaid. If you don't have the sales, but you can get the investment, you can also hide a multitude of sins in your business. You can get through those periods and maybe that's getting you past that gap to get to profitability, but maybe it's not. That's where it's...

Jerry Brazie (52:46.477)
That's right.

Jeff Holman (53:05.638)
as I, as I've worked with businesses that are both funded with investment and others that are maybe more practically funded or bootstrapped, you know, you, always, I always get concerned that, that this investment, fundraising amount is going to make it harder for the, the companies to actually become operationally profitable. And, and that's a, that's a tough balance because it's, it's just a, it's a different model on top of.

Jerry Brazie (53:27.501)
Right.

Jeff Holman (53:33.446)
and maybe superseding in some cases your actual business model.

Jerry Brazie (53:37.518)
And those first principles, whether it is an investor model or it's a bootstrap model, absolutely have to take precedent. Even if you are, I get selling yourself to help through cash flow. I get that, right? That makes sense. Just keep selling, keep selling. You can kind of keep the wolves at bay. You're probably not making a lot of on an even basis, but you're doing your thing.

Jeff Holman (54:00.126)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (54:00.619)
But at some point, you can't hiccup that. You can't go backwards. Because the next month after you've gone backwards, you're in trouble. But knowing that and understanding that that's what you're doing and then hitting a benchmark for that, you can grow your way out of that 100%.

Jeff Holman (54:04.413)
Right, right.

Jerry Brazie (54:15.437)
Of all of the years that I have been in business and the the the myriads of people that I have talked to and interacted with, very few of them of the 30 odd million entrepreneurs, I think it's something like three and a half million have more than 10 employees. The majority of them are solo preneurs. So you got 30 million solo preneurs.

The advice that I give and where I come from is that guy that's bootstrapping because that is the vast majority of the business, the small business world out there. So the investment money, it has a complexity to it. It has its own upside and its own downside. the upside, obviously, it can make the downside a little bit easier. But again, you've got to hit your benchmarks. But really, this advice goes across the board to either one. But I'm talking mostly to that guy that decides he wants to go start a lawn mower business.

Jeff Holman (54:42.333)
Right.

Jeff Holman (54:49.662)
Mm-hmm.

Jerry Brazie (55:03.093)
great guy that I've been helping his business has just been going nuts here in Tennessee and he works on swimming pools and yeah it was just himself and now it's three groups and when he met me he was just himself and they can't do it as well as I can and now here's how we do it and this is what we you know how we can figure that out now he's gonna have his first seven figure year and it's just incredible the growth and so those are for me those are the guys that I hope my advice comes through to not that the guys that get investment that's how I did it the first

Jeff Holman (55:10.813)
yeah, yep.

Jerry Brazie (55:32.896)
first time, that's important also, but the majority of the guys out here are guys that are just sitting trying to rip it every single day and thinking that they're making these mistakes and they're the only ones on the planet that are going through this and the reality is that it just isn't. And these basic principles, if you just apply these basic principles, I'll give you one story. I was $14 million a year, I wasn't making any money, I was losing it, it was going away. And I cut it back to eight million. I got rid of my two biggest customers, which made up the...

Jeff Holman (55:55.112)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (56:02.305)
vast majority of that $6 million because they were 90 % of my workers comp claims and I couldn't afford workers comp anymore. So that's how I found it was that they were 90%. Now I found it because it was shoved down my throat. I didn't find it because I was being proactive looking for it. And I had to take the company back where I can get my hands around it at $8 million and have an idea of what I was doing before I could start growing it again, which is what ultimately we did. I ended up doing that twice. That's how dumb I am, right? Back up, had to take it back where I get my hands around it again and then grow it.

Jeff Holman (56:17.149)
Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Holman (56:28.702)
you

think dumb would have been not making the changes.

Jerry Brazie (56:32.239)
you

Yes, that's true. But to just to give some context to, know, again, all of the advice I give, all of the stories I have, all of it's just practical, earned on the ground advice. And if I don't know something, I'll guarantee I know someone who does. Right. I ran across someone who hang on, I don't know that much about this. Let me direct you to Jeff. Jeff knows the inside. No problem, Jeff. Let me call him up real quick. He'll help you out. You know, that sort of thing. So that's that's really where I come from. And that's again, back to the peer to peer group that I just started, which is why that's so important, because that's

Jeff Holman (56:48.574)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (57:05.263)
peer-to-peer group that I started when I was or excuse me not that I started that I joined Fortune 500 CEO walks into my office off of a cold call he had started this group he wanted me to come be a part of it that somebody had done a newspaper article on me and he had seen it so he came to me and he's telling me he says you got to join the group I said I can't join the group I don't have time nor do I have the money it's like $600 a month at the time this is 25 years ago and he said yeah you can't afford not to do either and not a truer word was spoken so while I'm working 18 hours a day I'm taking one day a month for

for five and a half hours sitting in a round table with a bunch of other operators and for three years I didn't say anything because I had nothing to say. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I couldn't believe that this guy had the same problem that I had last week and this guy over here was telling me about a problem I'm about to have next week. And then they're giving me the answers on how to do it or not how to do it to help me kind of navigate through this very, very complex thing that I thought.

Jeff Holman (57:51.24)
Yep. Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (57:59.542)
I was the only one in the world going through it. And so for me, I always tell people, don't follow your passion. Do what you're good at. What can you make money at? Sell the people out of profit, take that profit and go follow your passion. That's what I say. Right. And so that's in that environment. That's the environment I've never done it. Any of the things I've ever done in the businesses I've ever owned. Am I passionate about it? I work passionately on them so that I can do better for my children and my family and all of those things, but they're not my passion. This latest company, the Kronos group, K-R-O-N-O-S.

Jeff Holman (58:10.428)
Right, right, yeah.

Jerry Brazie (58:29.475)
Kronos was the god of time in Greek mythology and I was like something entrepreneurs don't have enough of so the Kronos group is that peer-to-peer group almost exactly that I was a part of for 25 years. We still get together one time a year. The guys are in their late 70s and 80s now and I'm right where they were when I joined and I was like I've been talking about this forever going back to my 87 year old mother. I'm having dinner with her.

Last Christmas and she's like, you know what you need to shut up or just start that business because you've talked about starting one of these forever and And so I I'm just putting together my I'm just putting together my first group. It's a the Kronos group org Online, we just got the website built We're putting the first group together and the beautiful thing about it is it's two parts You have the group which will be eight to ten guys Everybody goes around you get your half an hour and then you have a board that kind of holds you accountable

Jeff Holman (58:57.534)
started. So is that going now? Have you have you launched this or you launched?

Jerry Brazie (59:21.739)
It's not kumbaya. You know, this is it's for operators. It's for killers. We're in there to make money. And if I don't know what what advice to give you, one of them do and you pick it up from them and then you get one hour a week with or one hour a month with me on top of it. So we get one on one action where we're sitting going through what we learned, what we talked about, what you need to work, what you need to work on. And those one on ones where every bit is as important as the group, because in that one on one, that Fortune 500 CEO that was retired coming in, man, this guy nailed it.

He just hammered it right and I needed it. I was like no I didn't do that Why didn't you do that? know well because I like that guy I know but we remember in the group we decided like guys is you know you're not gonna make money the decision man I know but you know those sorts of things that's a simplified person, but it just keeps your thumb He just kept the thumb down on me so it worked out really well And so I finally have gotten around to time to follow something passionate about Which is help helping other entrepreneurs in this kind of in this in this on-the-ground environment as opposed to kind of a master

Jeff Holman (01:00:21.52)
you said it was Kronos group, And who should be thinking about joining that type of group? Like what's a profile if there is one of the type of people that are joining? Of course, assuming that they've all been either punched in the nose or stabbed in the back, once they meet that criteria,

Jerry Brazie (01:00:23.629)
Thechronosgroup.org, correct.

Jerry Brazie (01:00:40.541)
If I did that, that would be a very small customer list, I would think. Yeah, if you are scaling a company and you're up in the high six figures all the way up to however many millions, right? 20, $25 million. At any one time, that's about how many I've done in a year. My company's generated over the years, we're just shy of about $500 million. And so over 25 years, I kind of keep it where I know. that's going to zero to...

Jeff Holman (01:00:43.998)
You

Jerry Brazie (01:01:08.045)
$15-20 million is going to encompass anybody, but really it's going to be that 0-10 guy that is either an entrepreneur and running their business, brand new, been at it for 20 years, whatever it is, and or they are operating the business on behalf of other people. Two of the guys that were in my group for all of those years ran businesses for families. And so they were the CEO of the family, or the number two guy in terms of one of the other guys, was the number two guy in a family business.

Jeff Holman (01:01:29.75)
Okay.

Jerry Brazie (01:01:37.186)
and they send in there. But they have operational authority, they could write checks, dealt with the finances. They were the CEOs or they were the leaders of their companies. And so really, if you're a $800,000 a year operator, whatever money that you would spend on me, or anyone like me, that sounds self-serving, which it is, here to, I wanna fill up my groups in thecronusgroup.org, go check it out. all of my, the stories I just told you, all of that,

Jeff Holman (01:01:41.267)
Yeah.

Jeff Holman (01:02:01.384)
For sure. Yep.

Jerry Brazie (01:02:07.095)
to find the success that I have and to navigate the issues and the money that I've lost and all of the problems that I've had to deal with. Having a group to go to and say, here's my problem this month, this is my biggest problem, help me out. And then having eight or nine guys sitting around the table that are invested in you doing well and being honest with you and providing you their experience, mean, hundreds of years of experience, you me sitting around that table. You can't find that on the internet. You can't find an answer like that, you know, on chat GPT.

You need operators that have been there and done that that will help you navigate that and then to your point and this is not Not a small point the feeling of camaraderie when you live on an island by yourself It's invaluable because you're in a group with a bunch of other guys that are on the same up You just don't know right that they're living on their own. I and also you go wait There's other people just like me that have the same problems. I'm not an idiot I'm not a loser right? I'm not doing this wrong

Jeff Holman (01:02:47.89)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Holman (01:02:52.477)
Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (01:03:04.205)
I didn't go to college, I don't not have information. Everyone has to deal with this the same way. For me, that was really empowering all those years ago at 31, 32 years old. Super empowering.

Jeff Holman (01:03:16.336)
Yeah, no, it sounds fantastic. I'm so glad you mentioned it because I've talked, you know, online and offline with some other CEOs and several have mentioned how powerful groups like this can be for them. You know, they just, they take so much perspective away from it. Of course, I'm certain these are really smart guys. I'm certain they're also adding their perspective, bringing value to the other members of the group. But from their perspective, you know,

They receive so much out of these groups that, you know, it's hard to say what the value really is. I read something on LinkedIn today, it was about attorneys, not necessarily business owners, but it's you know, someone, the hypothetical, tell me what you did, how much money you, or tell me what you saved the company this year from the work that you've done or something like that. know, attorneys are, it's really hard for attorneys to calculate ROI based on legal.

legal activities and they're like, well, don't know how to say it in numbers, but I can tell you we saved the company like three different times this year. So can't put numbers to it, but the company still is here because of us.

Jerry Brazie (01:04:12.845)
Sure. Right.

Jerry Brazie (01:04:20.641)
Yeah, right.

Jerry Brazie (01:04:24.937)
And the value in the group setting, the way, it's all digital, right? So you just do it from your office or your home, wherever you are. But you get together with the guys and the value there is unlike a mastermind group, it's nothing to matter in the mastermind group. But I personally, this is just me personally, have never gotten anything out of one of these online seminars or any of these mastermind groups. And so that's why I didn't go the mastermind way, which is an easier business model than the one that I'm putting together. But I'm not going that long because I want to help business owners on the ground.

Jeff Holman (01:04:32.668)
Mm-hmm.

Jerry Brazie (01:04:54.831)
With their problems and that's the thing about the group is you may not learn anything new But you might provide some benefit to the group right that benefits somebody else and then your turn will come around three months later and Google it may not even be your turn But you're listening to two other guys talk and all of a sudden you go I have that same problem. You may not even know this happened dozens of times you know business owners may not know they have the problem and then you hear about the problem from somebody else and you go wait I do that same thing and

Jeff Holman (01:05:19.165)
Right, right.

You're like, wait a second, repeat that. I wasn't paying attention as much as I should have, but I heard you just say this and I think that's what you just described what I've been doing. Say that again? Yeah. Yep.

Jerry Brazie (01:05:32.973)
Yes.

That's right. that's right. Hold that. Hold up everybody. And this that is where the meeting really starts to flourish because you go, I do that same thing and you're spending how much? I spend X dollars more. It's like, yeah, I don't know why here. me hook you up with Mike and Michael hook you up and you're doing it. You do it this way and set it up this way. And then you get this and then you save ten thousand dollars a month. And he's like, well, I only make ten thousand dollars a month. Well, you may double that. I cannot tell you the number of times that's insurance finance. It doesn't matter what it is across the board. Somebody will have some new

product that they're rolling out and they're like yeah I talked and this is fantastic and so now I do this and I know that's how I learned about about how to buy insurance was through this group rather than going through the big groups but combining it and buying it where I pay you know up to a certain number.

Jeff Holman (01:06:12.19)
Hmm.

Jerry Brazie (01:06:17.453)
I don't know how many tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars millions of dollars. I'd say over 25 years I don't know how much you know just learning how to learn it from the group And so that's really where the value of those come in and then again that one-on-one I mean for the for the price of the group on that monthly basis and all that information you get a one-on-one with me I would have paid that the fortune CEO that came in Easily twice what I paid a month for the group to have him come in and hold me accountable easy to say that

After he's died because the guy was tough, but I needed it and it was fantastic And so it's really kind of brings economies to scale. It's not cheap, right? So this isn't something you're gonna get for 500 bucks a month But the value that it's going to bring in my estimation for me was massive So that's where I will just say the Kronos group org is the group I'm putting together I'd love y'all to go there and check it out But go find a mentor somebody on the ground back to the mastermind again I didn't do that simply because when I'm

Jeff Holman (01:06:49.822)
Sure, sure.

Jerry Brazie (01:07:20.847)
I personally just had never, I know, how do I deal with it's Friday and I have $200,000 in payroll during Monday? How do I deal with that? That's my problem. And that's kind of disconnect for me. was like, no, I'm going to deal with outfits and people who can help me in my day to day, as opposed to making me feel better about myself and go home all jacked up and ready to go to war and then have the same issue the next day.

Jeff Holman (01:07:25.712)
Yep.

Jeff Holman (01:07:43.966)
ready to go without the perspective that you actually need. So, yeah. Yeah.

Jerry Brazie (01:07:48.331)
Right, without some answers, right? Or some ideas, yeah. So again, I know that sound, I'm not being negative, that's just for me. Some people like to go to those things and they get a lot out of them. I just never have. I spend my time on things that I can learn directly from that will impact my business. And then if it doesn't impact my business, I probably am not gonna pay any attention to it.

Jeff Holman (01:08:08.466)
Yeah, no, don't totally understand. Well, you've been more than gracious today sharing experiences, stories, thoughts, frameworks, know, all of that. And we'll make sure to put that link to the chronosgroup.org in our show notes. We'll spread this across our network, LinkedIn. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, is that the best place to go? Are you on LinkedIn? Are there any other places to connect with you?

Jerry Brazie (01:08:35.297)
Yeah.

You can find me on LinkedIn, jerryatjerrybrazee.com, the media at thechronusgroup.org. There's a myriad, jerryatjerrybrazee.com is the website. It'll take you there. Thechronusgroup.org will let you get in contact with me. LinkedIn at The Chronus Group. Instagram, you know, we do regular videos where I'm kind of talking about the things that we talk about. I kind of have always done that. I've had a podcast for years, kind of talking business and just life and these sorts of things. So I'm out there. Anybody can find me.

Jeff Holman (01:09:04.83)
Well, that's fantastic. Well, we really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to be here on the show today. It's been a pleasure for us and to all our listeners for the breakout CEO podcast. It's been fun having you around again. I hope you took away a bunch of insights from this and a few things to apply in your own businesses. So we'll say goodbye to Jerry. Thanks so much and we'll see you next week.

Jerry Brazie (01:09:08.973)
Happy to do it.