3 Degrees of Freedom

Ep 145 - How Freedom and Radical Honesty and Compassion Walk Hand In Hand with Kevin Belz

• Derek Clifford • Season 3 • Episode 145

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In this episode of 3 Degrees of Freedom, we welcome Kevin Belz. A startup consultant based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Kevin is an experienced small business owner with a partner and is involved in a few different ventures. With his specialty in helping entrepreneurs and founders navigate the startup space, we dive into the depths of how freedom and radical honesty, and compassion come together in the start-up world.

We explore how Kevin has related to the three degrees of freedom and which he is still developing further. We also learn how his lifestyle has changed since becoming an entrepreneur and get to hear the most interesting story from the startups he has advised. We gain insights into what motivates founders to start, grow, and either maintain or sell their companies, as well as how compassion and honesty have played a role in his success.

Kevin shares his advice for those trying to start their companies and can't seem to get results or motivation to get traction. Join us as we dive deep into the start-up world with Kevin Belz!

Connect with Kevin using the links below and learn more about his business:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-belz/
Website: https://blacksmithventures.com/

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we've got Mr. Kevin Belz and he is a startup consultant based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. How are you, Kevin? I'm doing great, Derek. How are you, man? Awesome. Glad to hear it. If those of you who are on the podcast do not recognize Kevin, because maybe you run in the real estate circles. Kevin has experience in raising funds and bringing products to market, and he is a small business owner In this episode of 3 Degrees of Freedom, we welcome Kevin Belz. A startup consultant based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Kevin is an experienced small business owner with a partner and is involved in a few different ventures. With his specialty in helping entrepreneurs and founders navigate the startup space, we dive into the depths of how freedom and radical honesty and compassion come together in the start-up world. We explore how Kevin has related to the three degrees of freedom and which he is still developing further. We also learn how his lifestyle has changed since becoming an entrepreneur and get to hear the most interesting story from the startups he has advised. We gain insights into what motivates founders to start, grow, and either maintain or sell thier companies, as well as how compassion and honesty have played a role in his success. Kevin shares his advice for those trying to start thier companies and can't seem to get results or motivation to get traction. Join us as we dive deep into the start-up world with Kevin Belz! Ep 146 - How Freedom and Radical Honesty and Compassion Walk Hand In Hand with Kevin Belz With a partner involved in a few different ventures. But mostly specializing in helping entrepreneurs and founders navigate the startup space. And so he's been in this for about three, four years now or maybe even longer. And he's here to talk about startups and also talk about the three degrees of freedom with us, as we do with every one of our guests. So Kevin, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's a pleasure to have you here. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. So if you don't mind, could you please take a minute to describe, as we were talking about the three degrees of freedom on this podcast time, location, and financial freedom. Which one of these three degrees of freedom do you think you can most relate with now or you've most worked to develop, and which one do you want to work on further or get more freedom for? My focus has been time. I see it as a fixed commodity. You only have so much. You don't know how much. And I'm a dad. I have a 14 year old son, a four year old daughter, and an almost two year old son. And so time is something that's very important to me using it wisely after that financial freedom because really that's one of the tripods that enables you to have time freedom. If you are able to, have a living, make a living, and have flexibility of finances. And I think coming in third is location. I've worked from home for eight years, seven and a half years, excuse me. And I'm used to that type of freedom. So it doesn't matter whether I'm in, Chattanooga, Tennessee or Florida or Arizona, I can do what I need to do. So that's that's my rundown on that, sir. Yeah. No, that's great. And I think that since it sounds like you're related to the tech field or you have some stuff going on inside the tech space it seems to be more of the norm these days. I've been hearing that most people have some location freedom. And that's awesome. Have you been. Able to use that. I know since you've got kids it may be a little bit difficult, but have you been able to use some of that location freedom to take advantage of that and go travel and continue to do work from home type of situation? Whether your home is at your Airbnb in Bali or something like that, have you taken advantage of that location freedom. We have. It's typically in the summers as our oldest is gonna be going into high school next year. He's an eighth grader right now. So that kind of keeps you tied down. He's a basketball kid, AAU plays at school, et cetera, so that, that part of the schedule is very full. But on off season and summertime, we take full advantage of that. Last year we spent a couple weeks just wanted to go to Ohio, Kentucky, just checked out a bunch of barbecue places could work whenever I needed to work. It was a great deal of flexibility and freedom, to be honest with you. It was nice. Yeah. A lot of people, they say that on their way to financial freedom A lot of people don't really understand that once you have location freedom, you're pretty much half the way there, right? Yes, there's still a time factor and there's also the financial piece as to how much you can afford and you know what you can do when you're traveling. But if you have the ability to be locationally free and work from those locations, it gives you a little bit of a sneak preview of what's possible with that financial freedom and even with the time freedom as well. So love to hear that you're taking advantage of that. Does your family enjoy this aspect of you being able to pick up and leave during the summertime? Is there stuff that like you guys are planning together to do? I'm just basically trying to understand what you guys do when it goes to when it turns to something like this location freedom, how you guys like approach it. My wife and I are. On two ends of the spectrum. And this is kinda, it's an ongoing conversation not something we disagree about, but we have very different personalities. We own a home and I've been trying to convince her, sell the home, rent the home, Airbnb, the home, whatever it is, not sure what that the entity is, get an RV and just go where we wanna go. And she's that's easy for you to say, we've got three kids, et cetera. And one is active in school, very active. But there's ways around that there, there are ways to navigate that successfully. And I used to love to travel in the us, just love it. Been in a lot of different places, like meeting new people, like experiencing new places, food, like chasing down this all ball diner that's like really great. And so I. I feel as though if we're gonna measure this, I used to have her at a 13 on a scale to one to a hundred to get her, and now she might be really at a 32. So she's getting closer and I, there's no pressure there, but I feel as though it's preparation for, our plans, what we really wanna do. And yeah. Just a stepping stone, Derek. Yeah, no, totally understand. And I'm I love that you guys are having this conversation and using the summertime to explore some of that. And as someone who's living that lifestyle, I'm glad that you're moving in that direction because it really is an amazing. An amazing experience to be able to do this. There's definitely upsides and there's downsides too, but I'm glad to hear that you guys are taking full advantage of that and working on your time and your financial freedom also at the same time. So let's change gears just a little bit. I wanted to talk to you cuz I, I took a look at your LinkedIn profile and did some research from what I could find about your company and what you do to help other people. It seems like you've made the change to become a full-time entrepreneur on your own in the last, within the last three to five years. At least that's what I see. Or that's what I gather. Yeah. Can you talk about how your lifestyle has changed since becoming an entrepreneur and just working with yourself and working with a, with another partner? I would start probably 20 years ago when I was in graphic arts and I was a plant manager, so I had a great deal of freedom in my responsibilities and had a side business with my brother. We used to build hot rods and paint cars and work on vehicles, and it was a passion. If you fast forward like 10 years from that, I ended up being a part owner of a print shop in upstate New York. Moved on from that and worked in a corporate environment for a while, and then when Andy came calling, I was unsure if I really wanted to do this again. I loved being a, an entrepreneur. I love owning a business. There's flexibility there, but if you're not careful, it can become like a ball and chain. It can just consume you. I've experienced that side of this too. Yeah. So when you go forward from that point we have one company in the southeast United States, and it's very brick and mortar. We build storm shelters, tornado protection. Used to be a b2c, now it's a b2b. So we've done some really large projects, some large corporations. Andy is a. All about heart, all about taking care of people. I am too. And that service can save lives. Long and short of it is we run into a lot, and when I say a lot this is a crazy number. In the last three years, I've probably been pitched 200 times, not an exaggeration. So I've had the ability to see all the things that are in the marketplace. The incredible ideas that people can come up with. And also the ideas which have already been captured by somebody else or something that just doesn't have legs. You've gotta be honest with people. And in that process, we ran across one company. They had a really cool software. It was in the mining industry. Automated so it could tell you how much weight a truck can haul and that, that may sound like a very simple thing, but it's not. It's a complex thing that needs to be solved. Weight of the truck, axles in the truck, the amount of axles with tires and bridge law. So we couldn't strike a deal with them as far as running that business for them, but they came back about three months later and they sold us the software we bought that. So we've since rewritten that. It is machine learning and it is a software. That core, again, about people, it can save lives. The way it started is a man in Florida owned some aggregate minds, had a horrible accident in front of one of his minds. Some people were killed because a truck was overloaded, and this guy is a tremendous human being. He's kind, he's thoughtful. And he considered closing his business just because he couldn't sleep at night. And the software is written in an attempt to get him to the point where he doesn't have, and it's not about liability legally. He doesn't want the weight on his shoulders of knowing someone is hurt because they're processed, didn't work, or someone, oh, I can make an extra $50 by overloading my truck and the brakes won't work. So that I. He can sleep at night now. So we've done our P o C with him, proof of concept. It works really well and we're getting ready to unleash it and get it out into the market. I do wanna mention that in the last couple weeks we've agreed to assist a friend I met about a year and a half ago in real estate. So it's our first jump into the real estate market. It's. It's a big jump because have never done that before, but it's going to be in bridge Virgin Islands a couple yachts for charter and one villa. And that's something that we're working through the process of legalities for the company right now and setting up bank accounts and all that kind of stuff. So I'm very stoked about that. It's gonna be different and interesting. Yeah I'm, thank you for sharing all of that. I'm hearing a theme, just like I saw, through, out in my research here in preparing for this podcast of compassion and honesty. Running through what your company does. And so now I'm starting to get the picture about why that's which is great to hear, and a refreshing change. But at the same time, I'm also hearing too how you're starting to get yourself to layer up. On this lifestyle that you're building, right? Being able to choose the thing that you want to do, that's already half the way there in, in terms of time freedom because you're. I get the feeling that what you're doing is not a job to you anymore. You alluded to that. Now it's more about passion and what you wanna do, which is amazing. And then it's also about location freedom, which I get the sense too that this real estate and this this luxury brand or this luxury venture that you guys are doing also in your business that has to do with yachts and, islands and stuff like that may also be a business play, but something that you guys can use yourselves as well so that you can enjoy some of the lifestyle that you guys are building. And so I I'm just levering how you're layering all of these things together and making these decisions so that's great stuff that you're doing. If you go back, like probably. Eight or nine years ago ran into a guy and he was always preaching about having multiple streams of revenue and he was in real estate and he was also a lawyer. Very smart guy. And he had a passion for what he did. He would not do something unless he loved it. You fast forward to just a couple years ago, I ran into another real estate guy and we became friends. And he was always preaching. Get involved in more, have this, have that, stack it. And the truth of the matter is that he was very simple in his approach, have five revenue streams and like one of his revenue streams is probably 30 Airbnbs, in this one corporation that he has. And it, he has people who operate that for him, but he's very successful in what he's done. And rubbing shoulders with him and hanging out with him enabled me to see the truth of that, that you don't have to focus on just one thing. When you have energy and passion and it's not work, you get a lot more done. You do it from a good place and it puts you in an even better place, not just financially, but mentally and lifestyle wise after you accomplished that. So we've got three things stacked up now. We have a couple others where we've helped companies launch and we have equity in their company, and those are seeds in the ground that are growing and one of them in particular, when it gets to maturity, will will give us a great deal more freedom. I'm wishing you guys the best of luck on this, although I don't think you're gonna need it, cuz when you're heart-centered and you guys are listening to what you guys feel is right and you've done the due diligence to get yourself to a point where you understand what works and what doesn't I think it's just a matter of time before you're gonna get there. And if you don't mind me asking I know that you said you've been pitched hundreds of times and you help startups. Work from the ground up. Can you just give us a preview of what entrepreneurs need to do to think about their fledgling business, to get support and basically be a successful business. What type of advice would you offer people who are either starting a side hustle up or maybe just a pure new venture? Most of the things that I touch aren't side hustles. They're like, Passion driven ideas that someone has developed without giving details. One gentleman I've interfaced with a couple times has technology and a patent on an energy storage device, which is a spring that goes down into the earth, not a joke, and it can hold immense energy. Wow. When you start to talk about things like that, some of the things that I've run into they're just too big in scope. They're beyond what our arms will reach or they're so far out of our lane that you can't really help people. But my advice to people is, do you research? Because you may have a great idea, but someone else may already have had that idea. And if you're going to be going into an arena, Where there's a 600 pound gorilla and they're very territorial about what they have. When you launch, they'll land on you. So you have to have ip, you have to protect that legally surround yourself with a really good team, including people who are mentors. Ran into a quick thing. An entrepreneur had a launch and. His advisory team was like 10 or 12 people. Yet within that 10 or 12 people, he did not have a key accountant and he did not have a legal advisor, and he had a bunch of guys who had equity in his company and they weren't really supporting his effort. He had ended up working his tail off and the other guys were riding on his coattail. So pick your team carefully. Know what your market is, know how big your market is because Derek, here's the truth. Out of all those pitches, three, three have been worth our time, and we have worked with those entrepreneurs. Man, That's fantastic advice. I get the picture in this company, for instance, that has 10 or 12 people working on it and one person doing the work. It sounds a lot like an LP GP relationship where people are just feeding cash into the deal to just get some ownership of an idea that they that these LPs or these limited partners believe in. But I love this advice of finding people that are so passionate that they're willing to join you as the founder on the push actively, not only financially, but also they're willing to do active work. And also believe in the vision, right? And the perspective, not just the financial returns. That's what comes to mind is, or as I'm listening between the lines as you're speaking and then also of course having quality people. I think that goes hand in hand with all of that. Thank you for sharing. Good advice. I have a mentor and he's been a VC for a whole bunch of years and he pours into me. He likes me. I like him too. He's a good friend and yeah. He always says it this way, money is not hard to find, but finding the right person with the money who can help propel your company to the next level and they can give you input, feedback, and pull apart the problems. You have the knots, pick them out and at the same time take the strengths and turn them into super strengths. That's what smart money is. So I always try to focus on that part. Yeah. Well said. Thank you very much. You have compassion and honesty, that is one of the central themes about what you do and helps guide your decision making. I can tell by, the shelters that you talked about before, and then also this new venture that you're looking at and things that you've done in the past that helps guide your decision making. Can you talk about how leaning into that has played a role in your guys' success in your venture? Or maybe this has been just something that you guys want to do. Out of, generating some freedom for yourself and you guys just decide that's what you want to do, right? Maybe some cost to you or maybe some some level of of sacrifice. I'm just curious to hear what you guys think about that aspect of it. Character is everything. Having a person who is honest that you're going to work with is everything. A quick comment is that I'm a Christian. I have been now for almost six years, and before that I wasn't. And Andy, my partner, has been a Christian for a very long time. So his morals his values, how he is as a dad, how he gives back to community. He lets that light shine. And I try to do the same thing I. Two comments very quickly. People act silly when there's $10,000 that they're talking about that's my $10,000, and the other person's arguing about it. Now, when you jump that up to a million bucks, people act beyond foolish for that money. Yeah. So the character of the people that you're doing this deal with, if it's the best idea I've ever seen in the entire world, It's bulletproof. It's just poised to be an enterprise worth maybe 10, 20, 30, a hundred million dollars. If that person lacks character, it is the worst deal in the entire world and we will pass on it. That's, you gotta have someone who has this. That and a heart that is honest and that they have integrity in character. If they don't have that, you will run into massive problems at some point and you'll regret it so that it may be difficult because people only see money, but because we've made those choices, Derek, it has kept our noses clean and kept us out of a lot of situations where conflict arise, money. Money's just not worth that much money. Just gives you freedom. Yeah. It just it helps you become more of who you are as an individual. And I love that money is an amplifier type of perspective because that is what is your guiding light, right? In deciding who you want to work with and who you want to help and who you want to even purchase stuff from. I love that perspective and now it gives me even more insight as to how you guys make decisions and why you guys are successful. Thank you for taking the time to answer that sincerely. If you don't mind taking, drawing from your VC experience and also from your startup advisory experience, can you tell us one of the most interesting stories on a company you've advised or, throughout the years? Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn and I'm only on LinkedIn because Andy said, Hey, in a previous life, cuz he is done oil and gas twice, entered and exited and done very well for himself. Social media is his friend. He's charismatic, he's great on film. He's just that guy. I'm not, he's. One end of the spectrum on the other, but we're a real good team. So had two guys reach out to me, one guy in particular on LinkedIn, and he's Hey, are you really how you appear to be? And I'm like, I'm not sure what that question means, but if I'm not me, then I'm somebody else. So we got a problem. And he's okay, I've been watching you for a while. He was lurking. He's I need your feedback on how to launch a company. I was like, okay, so Ask Away, had some conversations. DMed had some voice and phone calls. We finally, Andy and I meet him and his partner in Georgia and they pitched us. They have a I've gotta be careful because this is protected, but they have an idea about an industry specifically that no one had really gotten into before, and. I sat there and I listened. I looked at their performer. They had no pitch deck. Their performer was really well done, and it only took like literally 15 seconds to realize that in 18 months if these guys can hit their projections, it just poured money. And it's like, why haven't you been able to find funding? And they were just really struggling with that aspect. I did challenge their avatar. I was like, Hey the people you're after don't need what you're offering. At least I don't believe they do. And one of the gentlemen was like, walk away, do some research, guarantee you call me back. So I'd rather work smart than hard. I went home and I called their avatar. I have a guy that I know really well and I was like, Hey, I've got this thing that looks like this, tastes like this, feels like this and does these things. Would you at all be interested? And he's interested yesterday, want it? Why don't I have it yet? And I was like, wow, you just really blew my mind and who I thought you were and my like understanding what your business is. And he's nah, it's nothing like that. He says, it looks like that, but it's not. So long story trying to shorten it up here. They needed 10 million. And once we started taking about the perform, and th this, their adoption rate was if there were a hundred avatars. One, they only had to get one and this person had to do a certain thing 21 times in a month. Not hard to get that accomplished. So then started working with a guy who's a money guy, friend of mine, and he's yeah you need 75 million and they need a line of credit, probably 225 million now. Now it's a really large enterprise. Wow. Wow. And it. It's launched, it's on the qt. We don't talk about it because there are people in adjacent spaces who will become competitors very quickly when they see what this thing is and what it does. And the beauty is that because of social media, two guys I'd never met before reached out to me and we became partners. And I met the primary investor through social media. I have to tell this story. He's, he gets in my DMS one day and I was thanking this man online because of his kindness, and he's not really the super most kind guy ever, but I owed him a solid, so I was like, Hey, call you. Thank you. Appreciate you. Guy jumps in my dms, he's Do not become unevenly yoed with this man. And I was like, oh my goodness, what's going on? And it's, it's a biblical saying. And I reached out to him and his profile is three-piece suit. Lots of, very large enterprise that he's done in the past. Guy's a player, he knows his stuff. And I'm like, I can make myself available anytime in the next couple weeks. He's in Europe, I'm here. I said, I don't care what time it is, I'll get it online. I want to understand what you're saying. He's let's just do it right now. He's okay. So we struck up friendship because he is a straight shooter and I was driving to Charleston. Charleston gonna work down there for a little bit and just enjoy the low country. Love it down there. Yeah I called him on the phone. We were just yaking. He was traveling to, I think France. And I'm like, Hey, on this project I need this much money. I don't know whether we should do a fund or should do this or do that. I said, can I just get a little bit of your brain power? Because he's done hedge funds with 2.4 billion big ones. And he's pitch me, I'll give you 45 seconds. I pitched him probably 35 seconds. He asked me some very straightforward questions. I. And two were business questions. He quickly understood the entire aspect of what this business can and can't do, and asked the crux questions, the tough ones. And then his other question was a character question. Basically this, Kevin, if you were gonna make a million dollars on this deal, but you realize that it's just not the best deal in the world for investors, maybe they get their cash back, maybe they don't get their cash back. Would you do the deal. I'm like, no. I said I, I want the investors to be able to, like I mentioned, help us figure out what is this not, can we take this negative or what we perceive to be negative and turn it into a strength of the company? I said that's what a launch team is. And my other answer is that the first deal is gonna be the best slam dunk I can find because I want deal one, deal two deal 17. I'm a relationship guy. He's Hey, I'm not gonna be able to get back to you for probably a week. A little over a week, I will be out of pocket. And I'm like yeah. Just think about it as far as what would you do, because I have access to people who can do all those things and help me do that. Help Andy do that. Just didn't know what made more sense because there were some unique dynamics in this this deal. He literally called me back three minutes later and he's Hey, I was getting ready. My wife was driving. I got a piece of paper. Yeah. Cause I wanted to write down his thoughts and his comment had nothing to do with that. He's it will either be my money or somebody else's money. I'll take it all. And so it, it started the launch of that company. Wow. And it may never in my entire life happen again. That business will lead to significant financial freedom. My wife and I are very focused on what we want that life to look like as far as giving the people having a 5 0 1 c three family office, et cetera. We have a whiteboard upstairs and we've diagrammed the entire thing out. How. We want it to work, what those freedoms are, what we take that wealth and turn it into a lot of it's real estate. So I hope that kind of answers your question. I do not think I will ever have that opportunity. I could do this for 150 years and to have that fall into my lap, it was surely a God thing. That's amazing. I do want to say that. It that's just the power of knowing the right people or having connections to the right people. And at least that's how it kicked off. Obviously you gotta carry yourself through to be the person to convey that mess, to, to be able to connect with the person. It's not just about having exposure to these individuals, but it's about following up and actually, Making sure that connection is fostered in the future. Basically. I think you know what I'm talking about. I do, sir. And I think that the social media aspect, it just completely supercharges your ability to expand your network if you use it correctly. And the fact is that the algorithm for some reason, just chose to allow that message to be displayed to this person. And then you picked it up from there. You just were. I don't know if it's luck, I don't know if it's energy or whatever it is out there, but honestly, I think again, it's gonna, it's just a matter of time for someone like you, to have the energy out there. You would've ran into the same person analogous here in the United States at a coffee shop, most likely, eventually maybe not as lucrative. But something along those lines. I think, again, I know that this is a, this is something that's a complete moonshot. That obviously means a whole ton of financial freedom, but I do think that, a lot of this stuff happens in small degrees and anyone can expect this to happen if you really come from the right place. That, that's very well put, sir. And I really like, Alina. That's how I met you. The first time I met her and talked to her, I knew it was just a matter of time before we did something together. And it, I've had that happen to me probably like three, three times in the last two years. And those people have grown increasingly close to me as far as our conversations, our openness, just, sharing wins and losses. And I can't wait because she's such a smart lady and she's so focused and so good at what she does. High character, extremely high character. I couldn't praise her enough. It's one of those things where she is so accomplished, so good at what she does. I would think of it this way, when I grow up, I want to be like her and to be able to, have the values that she has. Yeah, Happened to good people. A lot of it is just the chaos of the universe. You bounce off a ball, you end up over here and you meet this person who's got this situation that you're exactly the right person to help them. Yeah, a hundred percent. If you know who you are as an individual and you know what type of energy vibrates with you, it's just a matter of time before. These situations pop up and you start coming across these people. And I had the same feeling about Alina too. She also reached out to me via social media. And, right away we started talking about, a small partnership or doing something like that. And we haven't worked together directly, but we've always been collaborating and bouncing ideas off each other over the last year or so. And that's how trust gets built. It doesn't have to be something that happens. You encounter someone and then you know, you're talking with them that day that they send you the DM and then all of a sudden it leads to this huge financial thing. So I get that. I understand that. Life is about the small build, right? That's how life works and that's how businesses work, is, acquiring skills, finding out who it is that you can serve. And slowly getting more and more clarity and energy around putting that together to help serve other people. I think that's an incredible story. So I appreciate that. Now I have one last question for you, but before we head off into our Rapid Round. Okay. And I don't want this conversation to end, but at the same time, I wanna respect your time and also our audiences. Yes, sir. What. The conversation that you have been having with your wife in terms of setting what you're going, yeah, what you're going to build and what you're gonna do with all this financial freedom and what you're gonna do with all of these, once this happens, I know there's a lot of people out there. Cause I've had this discussion and in season one of our podcasts we've been talking about how couples together can get in line to create financial freedom for themselves. And now we've broadened the message to talk about the three degrees of freedom. And there's still the husband, wife dynamic or the partner at the relationship level. Dynamic is hugely important. And I guess my question is, how do you and your spouse. Get on the same page for this. What does your process look like and where are you guys right now on this, and how important is this to you? She's my partner. We are open, we discuss everything. The hardest thing about being married is that when you're close to your spouse, unfortunately she gets to see every failure that you encounter. And it's a humbling situation. Yeah. There it is. You can't hide it. It's a crash and burn. Hey, I made a mistake. So those things happen, but you can either run away from that or you can lean into it. Yeah. That's what we've both done when I first met her. She's very open, she's very honest. She's she's got the CFO mentality. That's what she, she does. She's very good at it. And she's also oddly, a creative, which I've seldom met anybody in that C F O world, like a controller who has this creative ability. She's great at marketing. Brilliant. So we challenge each other. She's Hey, I wanna do this. I'm like, no, I don't wanna do that, and here's why. And she comes back with a, Hey, one of the things you said has a huge hole in it. Check this up, and I have to listen. And I like to listen and we just go around and we go back and forth. So what we've built on that whiteboard, and I wish I could take a picture and show it to you, is a composite of her thoughts, her research, my thoughts, my research, challenging one another. Yeah. It's never like you are in a squared off ring and you're fighting. It's, yeah. What do we want to build, what do we want our family to look like? What do we want our children to be able to, to inherit? That's the truth of the matter. And when you get serious about that, and I've got a great friend and he said this to me, this is not practice. You've got one life. Stop thinking it's practice. Go out and do something. And he's been ill a few times, recovered every single time. And that man lives his life that way. And it is just a catalyst to anybody who association with him. He's wonderful, he's energetic, and he has modified my mindset so we, we don't argue about it. I would be less effective without her. I used to think I was smart. I realized that she's a lot smarter than me. There are things I'm okay at, but she seems to eclipse me in many of her talents. And my ego doesn't have a problem with that because it's a wee, wee. And we've gotten to the point where our 14 year old, we have these discussions with him because we want him to understand the dynamics of what we're building, what it means, responsibilities, what his future could and should look like, and the character thing, how we want his character to be molded, not just his ability to navigate the business world. Yeah, that's again stated. And I cannot underscore enough how important it is that your spouse is on board with you and actively involved. Because there is some wisdom there that people, for some reason and I run across, even in the real estate world today, people don't tap into the wisdom of their spouses. They do. They just don't. Maybe because they're afraid of the conversation or they haven't had the experience to work with the par, with the spouse on vision or business or just what you want to create. Even in general, it's surprising how many people do not have that level of conversation. And I definitely encourage people cuz you know, I feel the same way. I love that you mentioned that your spouse sees all the mistakes, not like social media, right? Social media is all successes usually. And when you talk with your spouse and they have faith in you, and you have faith in them, there's something amazing that comes out of that relationship. And trust in each other, being able to support people and celebrate together, it's just really incredible. You know what you can do when you have a supportive spouse that you can bounce ideas off of. And that exactly happens with me. And I attribute almost all of my success because of my spouse. I'm very much an integrator brain. My, my wife is the visionary. For both her business and for mine. And without her, there's no direction to set the sale. And without me, there's no rudders. There's no. I love that there's no execution. That's so well said. I might borrow that if you don't mind. Go for it. It's all good. This is your content as well. So anyway, Kevin, this has been an amazing conversation, but before we go, there's five questions that I ask every one of my guests would love to rapidly ask them to you, and they're meant to be answered in about a 32nd timeframe each, for each question. So if you're ready we're gonna go ahead and start the Rapid Round. You ready to go? Amen. All right. Number one, name any resource that is or was essential in your journey to pursue freedom. Believe it or not, I can show it to you. The book, the Goal, which it's not gonna work on my camera. Oh. In four days with Dr. Deming. Yes. Opened my educated mind to a whole different aspect of what business was and got me going down the path I ended up on eventually. I know that's a simple thing, but that's an honest answer. Those resources, which I, those books have broken spawns, worn out pages of falling out because I have gone through them a bunch of times, and every time I do, I learn something different. Amazing. Yeah. And I've also I mentioned this on a couple of guests back as well on our podcast, that the most successful people reread books, reread them, and I fall guilty of this. I usually don't reread books. And so this is a habit that I want to reincorporate, and I love the fact that you go back and look at things and go back to those resources over time. I've read Zag like 30 times. Not a joke. Yeah. Amazing. Number two. If you woke up and your business was gone, you had $500, a laptop, place to live and some food, what would you do? I would call a friend, meaning I have built a network of people I trust people I've worked with, people I've helped. And I'm not Relationship means I like when you're married, you may do a hundred things for your wife and you don't have this little pad of paper, oh, she's done a hundred, I've done a hundred things, she owes me one. It doesn't work that way. That's not re relationship is, but when you work with a person and you have character and you have integrity and they know who you are, I would simply call them and say, Hey, I'm shopping and I know that within a day or two I would find the right opportunity. Something to jump into. To write that situation? No fear none. Excellent. Number three, what does your self-reflection and your goal setting practice look like if you have one. Self-reflection is constantly challenging. My own character. It's beyond this statement that if I do not have the character I possess, Our business will be out of business because my word matters that much. Or if I look in the mirror and that reflection isn't what I wanna see, I'm done, don't wanna do it anymore. So it's a constant challenge to grow myself, to level up to surround myself with people who can assist me on that journey and can open my eyes and my brain to opportunities that I've looked past. Well said. Number four, what are the core work habits that you attribute to your success on a daily basis? All right, don't shoot me on this. I work less. I have learned to work less. I have kept notes for years in books. I've got a stack of them. I go back, I review them. I have situations I think about, I've learned. Not to meditate and like sitting there with your arms folded and, humming. But to take a situation, go for a walk, think about it, and then you come back and you have a different energy when you're sitting at a desk, 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day, it may feel like you're working, but are you accomplishing? So I've learned to do more by doing less and that was a large adjustment for me cuz I am a type A. I have a situation going on right now with one of my properties where this is completely necessary. As I hear you listen to this, I have had a history of tasking things out on me, and it's a project management background to engineering background for me of just jumping into solutions before I understand what the actual question is and that's get the right. Look on your face. You're like yeah. So it's time for me to to really figure out like and put that all together because for me, having an unresolved issue just sit there right and fester, it makes me nervous and squirm, right? And so I've realized that I built my personality around someone that can't allow a problem to exist. And that's a fallacy because a problem can be there and it can be resolved in a number of ways, right? Yeah. But the right solution that is everlasting comes from the person that you are while making that decision. And anyway, I'm just taking your advice. I'm gonna be after this call is over. I'm gonna go grab my walking shoes here in Kyoto, Japan. And Just get lost for a little bit. Anyway, appreciate you there. Last question I gotta ask you here today, number six or number five, what tool or process has become one of your most important time, money, or energy saving ninja magic tricks that you use every day? Okay, so I'm a free spirit compared to Andy. Andy is a. He's an engineer and I think he has a very similar personality to you. You guys, you just immediately shine and you're great on video. Just great. Andy's that too. I'm not, I'm the guy who, I'm in a downstairs. I work in a quiet place and I've learned to tear down the box, so I will ask absolutely ridiculous questions. Unfazed by the answer and it quickly enables me to unravel situations very differently than typical protocol. And it sometimes puts people a little whoa, what is this? But Andy's learned that it is my absolute, it's my secret sauce. So you know, it, it's not for everybody how I do things, but I've learned to. Do it in a way that pushes and pull, it makes the yeses come closer. It makes the nos go further away. And I really honestly believe Derek, that when you say no to something, you're just saying yes to something else. So don't don't sweat it. Just move on. Wait for that next Yes, and catch it. Very powerful stuff there. I can't think of a better way to wind down this podcast, even though we've just literally met. We've exchanged a few words via email, but I feel like this was an incredible conversation. Definitely something different on the show. And I love having these types of conversations. We need to have more of these out in the open world, just person to person. In general. And it it's a shame that we have to end the podcast because I want, again, I wanna be respectful of your time and also my audiences. But before we go is there anything that you'd like to say to the audience? Maybe your audience? My audience? Any way people can reach out to you or if you don't want that to happen, that's awesome too. You have the four just for a second or two. Kevin Belz, LinkedIn. I answer all dms. I think the character means everything. So if you reach out to me, I'm gonna respond. I never ignore a message. And our website really talks about what Blacksmith Ventures is and what we want it to become. I just wanna thank you for having me on and chatting with me. You are a unique and very intelligent man, and I guess it drives me to, my last thing I wanna say is that when you're friends, when you're acquaintances, when your network knows who you are and what you do, their network becomes your network. So pick and choose people of high character work with them. And a lot of the things that we have come from friends of a friend who said, Hey, I know this guy Kevin, and it chains itself back. And that's where success has come from. At the same time, it's not about transactional that you did one for me, so I'm gonna do one for you. I could send somebody like five different opportunities. I'm not really keeping track, so I can't know it's five. But that person at some point's gonna send me just the right thing that's a glove fit for our company. And I have abundance mindset. There are zillion pizzas. And a gazillion pieces of slices enough for everybody. You don't have to fight over it. Yep. And that's how I roll it. It just feels good and it makes sense. Been successful that way. Yeah. I love this. Man, very well said. And just another reason to maybe even come have you back on the show, talk a little bit more about some of this stuff. But in the meantime, Kevin, thank you so much for coming on the show. This was incredible. Loved having you. And I, it was a real pleasure. Thank you so much. Absolutely. And for you, listeners that are with us at the final part of the podcast, just wanna thank you as well. Please, wherever you are listening to this subscribe, comment, engage, because as more and more of you do that, we appease those algorithm gods and we get to get more exposure to more people like Kevin out there and also get to add more value to more of you as listeners out there. Thanks again to Kevin and thank you dear audience. We'll see you next time. Take care.