Internal Rate of Return: A Journey Beyond Numbers

I had the great pleasure of joining Amanda Alexander on her podcast, Internal Rate of Return recently. We had such a dynamic conversation and touched on so many relevant topics.

I believe these topics are vital for anyone pursuing true fulfillment in life: understanding your "Internal Rate of Return." But I’m not just talking about the financial term you might know — I’m talking about something deeper and more personal.

Redefining Your Internal Rate of Return

In the world of investing, the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is a crucial, yet complex, metric that tells you the potential profitability of an investment over time. It’s all about understanding the time value of money and calculating what you’ll get back for what you put in. But there’s another kind of IRR — one that reflects your return on life, your true purpose, and your personal fulfillment.

As you advance in life or your career, there often comes a point where it’s not just about the money anymore. You start to ask deeper questions like, "What’s my life really about?" "What am I passionate about?" or "How can I design a life that reflects my core values?" That’s when you start finding your true internal rate of return — and that’s the journey I want to take you on today.

Finding Your ‘Container’ — The Foundation of Fulfillment

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my life and coaching career is the idea of creating a ‘container’ for your life. Think of your container as a blueprint or vision that holds everything you truly care about. Without a clear container, it doesn’t matter how many routines or practices you adopt — you’re just filling an empty space.

Your container defines what matters most to you: your purpose, your vision, your reason for waking up every day. Many people I’ve coached have tried everything — from therapy to personal development seminars — yet still feel empty or unfulfilled. The reason is simple: they haven’t figured out what their container is. It’s not easy work; it’s a process of self-discovery, facing hard truths, and making challenging decisions. But it’s essential if you want to live a life that truly resonates with who you are.

My Practices for Purposeful Living

Now, let me share some of the practices that help me stay aligned with my purpose. Every day, I engage in routines like expressing gratitude, meditating, exercising, and checking in with myself multiple times a day to ensure I’m staying on course. I work with several coaches — including a trauma coach, a high-performance coach, and business coaches — because I believe in the power of having mentors and support systems around you.

But here’s the thing: these practices aren’t just checkboxes on a list. They work for me because they’re aligned with my container. When you know what your life is about, every action, every habit, and every routine becomes a piece of a larger puzzle that brings your vision into reality.

Overcoming Challenges on the Path to Purpose

Let me be real — the journey to figuring out your purpose is not easy. It’s painful. It’s messy. And it can feel overwhelming. You’ll need to face parts of yourself that you’d rather avoid, make tough decisions, and deal with unresolved issues from your past. But the reward is worth it: a life that feels true to who you are, every single day.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is thinking they need to have it all figured out before they can start living a purposeful life. That’s not true. Start where you are. Begin by asking the difficult questions and trust that, in time, the answers will come. It’s not about getting it perfect — it’s about getting started.

The Role of Values and Intuition in Defining Purpose

Let’s talk about values for a moment. Values are those core beliefs that guide us in our daily lives, and they provide vital clues about our deeper purpose. For example, one of my core values is freedom. I realized early on that I couldn’t thrive in a conventional corporate environment where my time and actions were dictated by someone else. I value the freedom to choose my path, and that’s what led me to become an entrepreneur and coach.

Your values will evolve over time. What mattered to you five or ten years ago may not be what drives you today. Pay attention to those changes, and allow your values to guide you toward understanding your deeper purpose.

Discipline and Consistency: Effects, Not Causes

People often ask me how I stay disciplined in my work and life. The truth is, discipline is not the cause of my success — it’s the effect. When you’re aligned with your purpose, discipline comes naturally. You don’t have to force yourself to wake up early, meditate, or exercise. You do these things because they are a natural extension of who you are and what you’re striving to achieve.

Many people try to create discipline by sheer force of will, but that approach rarely works in the long term. Instead, focus on discovering what truly matters to you. When you’re connected to a meaningful purpose, consistency and discipline become second nature.

The Importance of Support and Mentorship

I cannot stress enough how important it is to have the right support system around you. I’ve been blessed to have incredible mentors, coaches, and a community that holds me accountable and helps me grow. If you’re serious about finding your path, don’t try to do it alone. Seek out mentors, join communities, and surround yourself with people who lift you up and challenge you to be your best.

Steps to Take Toward Your True Internal Rate of Return

So, what’s next for you? I encourage you to take some time to pause, reflect, and start asking yourself the tough questions. What is your container? What truly matters to you? What are you willing to pursue, even when it gets hard?

If you’re ready to dig deeper, I’d love to help. Reach out to me on Facebook or LinkedIn and mention “10X with Amanda,” and I’ll give you access to a course that will guide you from clarifying your vision to setting actionable strategies. It’s my way of helping you begin this journey.

Closing Thoughts

Your Internal Rate of Return isn’t just about money — it’s about finding a life that feels right to you. I hope you’ll take the time to explore this path, and I’m here to support you every step of the way.

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Internal Rate of Return episode

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[00:00:00] personality tests they've gone through.

therapy they've gone through, all sorts of things they've gone through, and then I'll look at it and I'll ask them, is it working? 

it's important for people to follow the truth. Uh, it's important for you to explore the questions for yourself, Wow. Thank you for sharing that.

In today's episode, we meet Faisal Ensaun. He's a loving husband and father who has overcome significant adversity and achieved profound transformation not only for himself, but for thousands of others across diverse backgrounds, from students and stay at home moms to CEOs and multimillionaires. He's a certified high performance coach and the co founder of the coaching mastery community and runs the collaborative multifamily investors mastermind.

We are so thrilled to have him here, Faisal. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. We are, it's a long time coming, so I'm [00:01:00] really happy to have you. Thank you again. And this podcast, as you saw is about the internal rate of return, which investors know as a really important, but complex metric that has to do with the time value of money.

But on the flip side of this, we explore how successful investors reach a certain point where it's no longer about the money and instead about focusing on designing a specific lifestyle or pursuing passion projects. And in this way, a person finds their. even truer internal rate of return to themselves, which often involves giving back to others.

You model this and you have a really special lens on it because you coach investors to do exactly this and reach their potential. So I'd like to spend our time talking about your early journey, where you are today, what your vision is for your future, and then any advice you have for our listeners sprinkled throughout.

Does that sound all right to you? Sounds great. I'm excited. Let's do it. Great. I always like to start with a check in question. So the check in question is, what's something you're grateful for in this moment? [00:02:00] So many things, um, I would say, first of all, doing this with you, cause this was one of my dreams to be able to just be with having conversations with people who are actually interested in growing, improving, and, and serving at the highest level, but really I'm grateful for my ability to have a flexible life, to be able to travel.

Whenever I want to, we're actually heading to my brother's place in Virginia. My sister's coming over for three weeks here from Sweden. So we're going to be spending, I'm pretty much going to be with them. Just a few days working here and there, but I can do that quickly because of the businesses that I've built because of the path that I've created, actually having an incredible family, um, I will caveat this because a lot of people don't share this.

I have my own challenges and problems, things that I'm always working through. That doesn't mean I have everything figured out. It just means that all the things that I have worked towards and that I've been blessed to have by God. I think that's. Something to be incredibly grateful for [00:03:00] because a lot of people don't and I didn't have it for a while and I struggled through that so I understand the value of it.

I'm going to take a little bit of a pivot here actually before even going to the regular interview questions and that's about the practice of focusing on, you know, we just did a moment of gratitude, but you also thank you for admitting you have your own challenges, you're human and I myself have battled depression.

So I appreciate that you've brought that up because coming out of it, I recognize that it really takes a daily, even moment to moment practice of choosing to focus on the right things or to, you know, really, you know, Stay positive sounds cliche, but I would love to learn a little bit more about your routines or your practices that keep you Centered on the things that are energizing you even alongside the things that may be draining you might be a long list But, but I'll, I'll give the, the, [00:04:00] the themes of like what keeps me aligned and moving forward.

Uh, first of all, and this is why I do this work quite a bit with any entrepreneur investors. First of all is, um, understand a lot of people think that they need to have. Practices and things to do. Those are, those are the details and things. Those are the activities that are involved, rituals that are involved in life.

I look at those as sort of the fillers, but unless you build the container, what are you going to, if you fill the, there is no container, what are you going to fill it with? So the container is actually your, what, what is your life about. What is your vision? What is your sense of purpose? Why are you waking up every day?

Like if you ask, there was service done around this stuff. You ask somebody, why do you wake up every day? They will, on average, they will say, well, because I'm alive. Uh, or they will say, Oh, why do you go to work because everybody else goes to work and that's just the thing to do. Like they will look at the obvious, but there's nothing [00:05:00] underneath that.

What makes you, what makes you come alive? What makes you purposeful? What makes you fulfilled? Um, Why are you here at this moment? How far have you gone your own story around it? Where are you going? Are you engaging in your life? And what makes you engage in your life? What makes you connected? I think if you once you understand that The fillers in the process like whatever practice you bring into it will work But if you don't have that figured out you can bring meditation.

You can bring exercise you can bring All sorts of stuff it will not work This is why there are a lot of people who are obsessed with personal development You Yet they're incredibly miserable inside because they haven't figured out the container and they keep filling empty space with something and it keeps getting scattered.

And I'm giving this as an analogy or a picture for people to know there are a lot of things that I do and that will look similar to what other people do. But it's not that, uh, um, and some of those things I'll give you an example. I do have my, my routines. I have my routine to [00:06:00] meditate. I have my routine to exercise.

I have. Um, my routine to check in with myself to see what's going on and I do multiple check ins throughout the day. I have my routines for setting intention. I have coaches. I have trauma coach. I have high performance coach. I have business coaches that help me. I don't just rely. I have communities that I rely on to support me.

I have the right environment around me. I consistently work with my wife to build my life together and we deal with challenges that come up. Like those are, I look at all those as fillers, but if I didn't have a sense of direction, purpose, what mattered to me, it would be, I could do all the other things, but I don't think it would have the same effect.

I know that because I've taken enough clients through this and many clients will come to me. They actually have done a lot more than I have. They have a lot better practices, more efficient practices, and then I often will ask them. Like they will send sheets and data after data and spreadsheets and personality tests they've gone through.

therapy they've gone through, all sorts of things they've [00:07:00] gone through, and then I'll look at it and I'll ask them, is it working? And they'll be like, no, not really, not quite, I feel like I'm struggling, or I'm hoping that it'll work out, and they're trying to copy somebody else's process to make it their own but it's not working.

And, um, often actually the simplest thing would be, let's figure out what your life is going to be about. And that is a hard thing to figure out because it's actually very painful to one, figure out, um, because as soon as you figure out what your vision is, you're going to have to make some difficult decisions.

As soon as you figure out what your life is going to be about, you're going to have to resolve some things from the past. You have to face certain things in the past that are painful to face. You have to get support. You have to get help. It's a lot of work. And most people would rather just have some practices to do and they will stick to it for like three months or six months and then they'll give up on it.

But that was a long answer to your question. But I think that container is incredibly important to, to, to understand. And none [00:08:00] of us are taught to do that. Uh, and I can't teach people to do that. I have to walk them through a process for them to build that themselves because they know their life better.

And that's the process of coaching. Wow. Beautifully done. We're done with the podcast now. I don't know that we have to find him. faisalensaun.com. com faisalensaun. com. If you want to find your container, I need to find mine. You know, I, it can't help, but ponder what mine is as you spoke through that, because yeah, I have my practices and I think, you know, when I, hear the question of purpose.

I struggle a bit because you hear, or what comes up for me is my purpose is to be a mother, or there's something that I'm debating right now.

And I don't know if I can really say that on this podcast . But you know, it doesn't mean I'm not doing my W2 job. It's just, I want to focus some of my brain space when I do have it outside of being a mother to building my own business. So climbing that corporate ladder is no [00:09:00] longer as exciting for me.

So that tells me that you have clarity around a piece of your vision that you're able to make this difficult, difficult decision, right? This would be a, this is not an easy decision, but most people won't even make it. Uh, it's like Michael Blanc, like I have a contract with Michael Blanc with my team and he's in the multifamily space.

He's like, every time somebody jumps into the multifamily space and he's like, , Three months in, all of a sudden, they get a, they take a promotion, they do that. And he was frustrated. He's like, I don't understand why people do that.

I'm like, then why did you jump into this? Why are you more focused on your career now, if you made this decision? I told him, like, they have no clarity about what matters to them. They have no clarity about their vision. I'm like, you can be frustrated all you want. Your mentors can be frustrated all they want.

They haven't worked through it. And you guys don't know how to help them work through that. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. And for our listeners, I'm sure you know who Michael Blanc is, and if you don't, he's, he's a big deal in the multifamily space. And I was just going through that with my own multifamily coach, who you know, [00:10:00] Jens, just yesterday, where it was, I was debating going for this job change, this promotion.

And, He was trying to coach me towards well, why are we doing multifamily that you know, so But it goes back to your thing about purpose, which is is my only purpose to be a mother I don't I mean I am very driven to be the best human and mother and spouse that I can be But I don't feel like that's my authentic answer.

So that makes me pause to say, okay I really need to clarify my container more So for that. You're welcome. And, and there's, uh, there's a Joe Rogan interview. Some people can, maybe that will be a very interesting interview. Um, he interviewed Naval Ravikant. He's a great thinker. Um, he asked, so they were talking about purpose and it was so interesting.

So is, and just the conversation led up to it and, um, Naval Ravikant said something about the, the [00:11:00] pursuing the question of purpose. Um, is very important. Uh, and once you figure that out, it'll be, your life will change. Something to that effect. And Joe Rogan's face is very interesting. He was actually excited to find out what that is because this guy has explored it.

It's like, so what is our purpose? he's like, and then Naval said something that was very interesting. It's like, it's not, the answer is not as interesting as the question itself. And that's it. And he's like, it's important for people to follow the truth. Uh, it's important for you to explore the questions for yourself, because as soon as you do that, you will find your answers, but most people don't know how to follow that.

And they don't, one, they don't have the training, they don't have the thought process, they don't know how to follow that, um, and so they don't lead to your own, their own answer. And I'm not surprised because I was never taught to do that. I had to learn that from a lot of different philosophers, from my mentors, from my coaches, to to follow that questioning [00:12:00] process.

And I went to school for two different, two decades. Um, and because we don't know how to follow the questioning process there, we never lead to something that's important to us. We pick up pieces off it, but it never becomes clear. So one of the things that my clients will say, um, After they're in my program about a year, they've gone through this process like 10 different times, their vision, their purpose and all that stuff.

And I'd say incrementally go through it. It becomes more and more clear, but then they will get to a point where, where you start to see the focus in their face, the conviction in their face, you bring, throw anything at them. And they'll be like, no, this is what matters to me. And this is what I'm focused on.

And they don't know how to explain that. They don't know how to say that. Like you met Julie, how is she? Like you can see her conviction and her energy, what matters to her. They'll go through challenges, all sorts of stuff, but they have this drive that becomes so clear because it's super connected to their sense of purpose and who they are deep down.

Wow. Wow. Okay. So it [00:13:00] helps to hear. It's not easily articulated because the question that comes up for me, like Faisal well, what is it? Is your purpose? Is it multifactorial? Is it that you're a father and a husband and a, you know, coach or like, is it not that simple? It's multifaceted. It's multidimensional.

It's not one thing. And there are things that I'm not even doing that I know that are related to my purpose. For example, there's, I have this vision of creating a community longterm and, but that's like a. 10, 15 year out thing. Uh, I'm not, I am kind of experimenting with that for, uh, with different things, but I see that to be a part of what I, why I, it actually, I don't even know because it's so connected to what I want to do.

Actually, the reason why I jumped into the coaching because I didn't know, like there was a time when I used to, I would get this, this vision of being on stage or being, working with people connected. And it was so ridiculous because I was like the most, um, extreme introvert, introverted person you would [00:14:00] meet.

I didn't like, I'm quiet. I would do my own things. I was like, that's the most ridiculous thing I could think of. But for some reason that was important to me. And I explored that I explored that exploring. And then that became clear. Now I have a bigger vision towards building a community or one of the visions.

And I feel like I'm driven to do that. And I will, I'll make all sorts of weird decisions that will look ridiculous to people because I'm not getting money or anything, but I will. experiment with that, towards that, because I know it's connected to who I am and, or a better version of myself towards that potential.

And I know that that will serve a lot of people. And I know that, um, there's an intuitive pull that I have towards it. I don't know why, but I, I know enough to explore that myself and with my coaches and with the people that are serving me and supporting me. I think I know what you mean. There's this calling, it feels like, and you just have to follow it.

And you heard, you heard it here first, sorry for the stumble, but he said 10 to 15 years. I feel like it's going to be more [00:15:00] like five years, at least the first iteration of it because the community can evolve. Right. And, you know, I, I think you're already on your way and it doesn't, 10 to 15 years seems it's even if that's the appropriate amount of time, I feel like it's going to happen sooner for you.

I hope so. I hope so. But, but see, it doesn't even matter to me because I think I, um, this is so meaningful to me is that I don't care where it goes, how much of it I built. I just like the journey that I'm on. I just love being in this process. There's a part of me that's very engaged with it. And that's just one part of who I am.

I also see my family as a, as part of my purpose, not to take care of them, to support them, to provide for them. Provide for them. I also see my purpose working with my wife to build our life together. I also see my purpose with my business partners. I also see my purpose, uh, just as a son, uh, like there it, or as a thinker, as a thought leader, or as a, there's so many different, but it all converges into what is it that is in my core, or you might say [00:16:00] soul.

And I only know that nobody else knows that it's more of a feeling intuitive understanding, but that's based on a lot of deeper work that I've done to connect to that. It's a lot like when you're first starting to explore it. It's think of an onion. The first layer you peel it, there's another layer and there's another layer.

And when you go deep enough, you will find, uh, well, people will get disappointed because the bottom of it, the inside of it is there's nothing in there, but there's that. And. As you go deeper and deeper, you, you start to see that, Oh, okay. They're all cluing you towards something. In fact, you would start to notice that your whole story has been about that.

You start to see a pattern and why, what you've gone through and guaranteed anybody who's listening, who's interested in understanding their potential. If you explore your story, if you explore your path forward, you will see a pattern and you'll be like, Oh, okay. Ah, yeah, that is why I'm here. And this is what religions and sages and saints have been saying all for thousands of years, that when you [00:17:00] figure out what your path is, nothing else would matter, will matter.

This is the most important thing. And this is what you will go towards. And you will see it in your own energy. Other people will see it. And then business, family life, those all become mediums to you fulfilling that potential and that purpose. Wow. That's really exciting and mysterious. And yeah, I can't wait to learn more from you.

This is, uh, you've got my gears turning and I have so many other questions, but I'm going to go into a little bit more about you and your own early journey. If you don't mind, we're going to peel back some of your onion and, you know, this podcast is about money and mindset and mission and, you know, I'm actually struggling a little bit because I'm, what you're saying is lingering with me.

Part of me feels so driven to build a life for my family, Macedonia, where my spouse is from, and, you know, it's the [00:18:00] complete opposite of what I, I'm born and raised in the Bay Area, it's fast paced, it's about your career, ambition, all of that, and we slow our life down. We have a home in Macedonia, and it's really relaxing, and I see us having a very, very Wholesome life there with our children, but at the same time, I'm not the type to just sit and relax.

So I'm not clear on what my purpose will be once I'm there. And right now it feels very numbers driven in order for us to get there. So it's not, my purpose is not to amass a bunch of money and you actually don't even need a lot of money to live in a third world country. It's called currency hacking.

You use the U S dollar to then live a nice quality life somewhere cheaper. I am somewhat obsessed right now with like, how do I net cash flow 10, 000, then 20, 000, then 30, 000 a month. And I know that's not my purpose, but I feel like so called to do that because it will hopefully help me peel the next layer of the onion [00:19:00] when I'm not in the rat race.

And maybe it is, but maybe the fact that you, and the key there is you feel called to do that. Maybe you're not clear about the, the bigger picture yet, but there's a part of you that's getting pulled towards it. I think that's important enough to explore that and experiment with that. Um, I, I, I give more credit to our intuitive pull or emotional pull towards, not, not kind of temporary emotions, but something that feels more solid because emotions are, temporary, like they will come and go when you feel anxious, when you feel angry, when you feel, but there are certain things, certain feelings that we have that are more deeper and we feel it and we get, we feel pulled to do something.

Like I, I went through a lot of sacrifices around The sacrifice in the sense that I let go of a great career in engineering, I had just come out of school after five years or so I worked in the field for two years and then I saw that that was [00:20:00] not my path and it was a difficult decision also to and I was younger as well.

I had to convince other people. It's like I look like a crazy person. And I didn't even know, like, at least real estate investors have a tangible thing that they can describe. At the time, coaching was not famous at all, 10 years ago. It was, it's like, what, what are you doing? You're going to talk to people and they're going to pay you money to, it's like, are you nuts?

And, and I didn't know how to explain it either because I didn't know the path enough. All I knew was that I had a this intuitive pull and I was inspired by Brandon Burchard, who created a certified high performance coaching program. Like, if he did it and I see how he has impacted other people, why can't I do it?

Why can't I do, go through this way? This is my interest. This is what I love to do. This is what I love to study. Um, I can figure it out. I didn't know how to explain any of that to, to people, but I had this pull towards it and, and my wife saw that. And actually she was my biggest supporter. [00:21:00] She went to that first conference with me and, and she's like, you can do it.

And through all the challenges that we went through, we supported each other. She supported me and I struggled to be honest for the first two, three years. Our first daughter was born around that time too. I did not know how business operated. I had no idea what the hell business was or investing was or any of this stuff.

All I knew was that I had this pull towards this and that was good enough. For me. And so I'm saying what you have is I think that's good enough to pursue it. And I think the next steps will become clear. But I do recommend that you go deeper into it to just figure out like what is it about that pull What is it about that intuition that's important to you? Um, because that will make it more solid. That will make it more so because in those times when we struggle, when, when we feel, especially in business, you, you know, that the, the biggest thing in business and investing these things that you might not see the output right away.

It might be a while before you see it. So in those times when you're struggling, when you need to focus on multiple things, when you're running businesses, what pulls you out of it? [00:22:00] Usually it's that, that, that intuitive pull Usually it's that vision that you have that allows you to make different decisions.

If you don't have that, then it's very easy to get pulled by your emotions, with every little thing that's happening in your life. Yes, this is a major learning that I got from you after Denver, even without your presence because you handed me the book, Untethered Soul. And I've really been thinking about it every single day, which is how do I keep an open heart?

But you're talking about that intuitive pull and that we're not our thoughts. We are not our emotions, but so many of us identify so strongly with that. And if we can't. Just observe our thoughts and emotions. It's harder to tune into that intuitive pole. So for example, with me getting shoulder tapped by these influential leaders at my company to consider a role that yes, I could probably do really well in it and be excited about it, but that would be my ego being filled more about, okay, let's make this move and let's accomplish these [00:23:00] things.

But intuitively I feel like it's, you know, one question I have for you about purpose. Can that be considered synonymous in ways with values? Because something I'm reflecting on with this current challenge is, well, I value my time and I value my ability to give headspace to real estate investing. And I value just the work life balance and the rhythm and the predictability and the familiarity of my current role.

So it's not exactly, maybe I'm answering it. It's not the same as purpose, but it's pretty similar. So how would you decipher or distinguish value from purpose? values. Well, our values are, and I would say they're an indication towards the kind of People we are like the, the values that we have tours, for example, um, I realized this later on, but initially, um, for some reason I was, I couldn't when I, whenever I would work somewhere, even in the, in my, as I started my career and I was excited and [00:24:00] everything, for some reason I didn't.

I didn't connect with the culture that companies were creating that I was working with at least I tried different two different companies and it wasn't even what they were fine Like I could have seen myself working but there was something that wasn't Setting and then the other thing that I felt the contrast of I I felt like I didn't own my time I didn't I felt like they all This was like i'll tell you this quick story So there's one of my first jobs.

It was at an office. Like it was a very comfortable job. I could finish my work with Three weeks, the first six months, I made a lot of improvements and, and, and I was doing custom work for them and it was, uh, CNC work, uh, as it was a little bit below what an engineer would do, but at least I was doing programming for them.

And I was, and because I had a little bit more knowledge, I was improving their, their productions. So I would go talk to the client person who was in charge of that complex CMC machine, and I would keep making improvements. So the first six [00:25:00] months I made a lot of improvements to it. After that. They actually didn't need it.

I made three, it made the machine three times more improved, more efficient. And then after that, I didn't have much to sink my teeth in. There weren't any other positions. So I started helping other people around me, but even with that, I could get everything done in about two and a half days out of the week.

And then I would go, I would go talk to people. I would do other things. And then at some point, one of the managers came to me. He's like, you No, I see that you're always going around doing other things other than being in your desk. Um, and that actually gave me a huge clue. And I'm like, what do you mean?

I've done everything and I'm helping other people too. And I would think that they would appreciate the initiative, but they were more concerned about what I did when I didn't do work. And, and I said, I'm like, I've done all my work and I've helped them. He's like, yeah, I understand. But we have customers coming in.

I think you should be more around your own desk area. That's when I realized they didn't own my services, they owned me. I did not like that. At least that's the sense that I got. [00:26:00] And it actually gave me a clue as to is I, I want my own path. Uh, I do not, that doesn't mean as a business owner, I have, I'm not accountable to other people.

I don't have a responsibility as a, but I get to decide. And that was, for some reason, that value was so important to me. I didn't know how important that was until I heard that. I'm like, no, there's no way somebody else is after that. I couldn't even get my mind to be there. And even though I changed jobs, I looked at him like, no, I don't fit into any of it.

I'd rather create something. So that kind of clued into my value around free. And I didn't even know that I had that entrepreneurial spirit, but it was there built in. So that value connected to freedom is one of my biggest. And that's, it's not the money, it's that, that's the freedom of choice that I'm getting.

That's very important to me. So it gives you clues to what matters to you and it gives you clues to what matters to you. That's why our why is usually connected to our values and our, what we're aspiring towards. But I don't know if that's clear, but that's, [00:27:00] uh, our values are usually clues to what matters to us.

And they evolve with us too. Which is different from purpose, the important thing that you just said was they evolve with us because if I were honest, my values or what mattered to me earlier in my career was I wanted to be invited to the meeting. I wanted to have a seat at the table and I wanted to have visibility with leadership.

I have all those things now, and I really don't have command of my calendar. I'm in meetings all the time. I've actually gotten to a point, thankfully, post sabbatical and post parental leave, where I will opt out of meetings if I'm not super clear on the objective and what value I'm bringing to that meeting, which is counterculture.

You know, people expect you to be in those meetings and et cetera, but. Yeah. I, I valued that. It mattered to me. I wanted to be in the room and now I'm in the room and I do, it is important to me. I do feel like this is a natural space for me, but I value more having my free time. And so I don't need to be in the [00:28:00] room all the time.

I don't know if that makes You described a very powerful frame that a lot of entrepreneurs and investors kind of come across, but they don't know how to articulate it. Um, so there are two types of games that people play, like when you're in the corporate world, usually you're playing the status game.

It's about promotions. It's about the next level. It's about the accolades. It's about what you're being recognized that and then you get to a point if you come to a point where you kind of connect to that entrepreneurial spirit or you feel like your life needs to have a deeper meaning or you feel like you're going to or something.

Another dimension of who you are comes in. That's the freedom side of you and freedom and status can go opposite to each other actually for a long time. And this is why entrepreneurial path that can be, especially if you're, you're, you have a startup or you're starting from scratch or you're starting as a multifamily investor, you will not have accolades and status for a long, long time.

And most, most [00:29:00] people's, um, uh, uh, ability to sustain whatever they're doing is they've been trained. By giving them external feedback, external feedback comes in terms of money, accolades, uh, social status, all. So that's the status game. Anybody who's in the corporate game, that's the game they're playing.

As soon as you get out of that, you're nobody for a long time. And that's, I've gone through that the past decade, and nobody knows, in fact, most people will think you're crazy, most people will not understand why you're dedicating so much time to do something, or why are you doing something that doesn't have a payoff, because they're not trained to think like that.

There's this one thinker that said there are two types of, two big addictions, there's heroin and a monthly salary. So we were, and business doesn't work like that. Once you start something new, it takes a while until something picks up. Most big projects I'm involved with, that's not going to pay me off in 10 years, but I'm [00:30:00] dedicated every week to it.

Because one, I care about that. I'm fulfilled by it. It's, it's the process that I care about more. And most entrepreneurs are like that. They're trying to solve problems. They care about the process. They're fulfilled by the process and they're doing that. They're not even concerned about what they're getting, but they're not expecting the paycheck next week, two weeks and more.

And I train other coaches as well. I have a community coaching master community. And coaches are a lot like investors too. When they come in, they have virtually no business training. They haven't gone through that. Their mindset is not there and they're developing it. First three to six months, They they cannot it's so hard for them to stick to it because they're not getting paychecks They're not getting the the feedback.

They're not getting the the many of them had really good positions People were recognizing them all that stuff. None of that They're starting from scratch and that's actually an incredibly difficult to do Thing to do for most human beings one because we're a social species. We want status. Everybody wants it.

I want status But again, [00:31:00] where is your value if you're going to be an investor entrepreneur? You Your, your value towards freedom better be much bigger than you wanting status right now, because you might not have that for a long, long time. And it sounds like you're picking freedom. This is so, so important though, because You're right.

Part of why I was so high performing in my career in corporate or have been is that it's that addiction to the positive feedback. It's like you do this or you overextend yourself this way, then you get recognized for it, then you get more responsibility, then you crush that, then you get recognition or promotion.

And then, but the more you do it, the less freedom you have. And that's where, but there's, there's this. It's almost like a tick, like you need to have achievement and the social recognition does matter in some way. And what I do see with investors or whom, whomever on their journey, social media, I wonder if that serves some purpose, you know, I [00:32:00] actually don't.

I don't particularly love putting posts on social media, but I'm doing it consistently to show that I'm committed and that I want to teach others what I'm learning. And I wonder if that somehow fills the bucket a little bit just to see people liking, like I'm not doing it to get a bunch of followers.

That's not my goal. I want to put helpful content out there for whoever wants to consume it. Even if it's a few folks, maybe they'll become business partners in some way. Like I'll admit that's the, that's one of the objectives. I'm curious if I were to do only this full time would just that fulfill me and I am not so sure, you know, you got to stay eyes on the prize or really clear on your container, like you said at the beginning.

Yeah, so and that's why it becomes important to understand what you value most if you value status accolades and stuff Um, then you're going to struggle quite a bit for at least in the beginning stage of it I I have status now. I have people recognize me as a leader, [00:33:00] but that came much later on that's like That's like for six, seven years, nobody even heard of me.

Uh, and I was doing the work in the background day in, day out. I was doing all this stuff and, and it's not like I was suffering. The reason why I was doing this, because I enjoyed the process. I loved supporting people in the, what I was doing. I loved working through it. I struggled a lot, but it was so important for me.

And that's why I did it. And that's what I'm saying. If you're not clear about that. So a lot of investors will jump in and do this, but they miss those, the status stuff, they miss being recognized. They miss, and that creates a lot of resistance because they're not clear as to what they, what truly matters to them.

And a lot of the work that I do, I help. People figure out based on their evolution, based on their growth, what are their important values? And how can they connect? How can they remind themselves? How can they stay connected to it? Because once that's there, they'll make decisions like you're making with your, uh, corporate job.

And this is that, oh, okay. That's a no brainer. This is important to me. [00:34:00] I'm not trying to influence your decision one way or another, but that just as an analogy because you came in, but and this is what happens. So somebody starts working with me for six months. Within six months, they will, to other people, look surprising.

To me, it's a normal process at this point. Within six months, and this, this, this is actually fairly common. When I work with these six months to one year, they will, I'm really moved to a different place. They'll quit their job. They will do a bunch of stuff and I didn't tell them to do any of that stuff.

They become clear about their own direction. They become clear about their own vision and purpose. They actually make decisions themselves. I'm just asking questions to help them dig deeper. They understand what their life is about. So their decisions look erratic in offset and monumental, but it's only because they begin to understand who they are and what their path is.

And so they, they're not pulled by you brought in social media. They're not pulled by these. Um, uh, and this is so interesting. My business coach, he's a nine figure coach in the, in the mind belly world. Um, [00:35:00] but he was talking about it cause one of the coaches in the small mastermind that I'm in with him, Um, she was, she was posting a lot of stuff and he kind of detected that it was less about service.

It was more about getting the likes and followers. And he intuitively went in that direction. Many people might know about Jay Shetty and he's friends with him. It's like Jay Shetty is a big celebrity, but he's like, he's broke. Compared to the effort that he has puts in and he gave a comparison like take mind valley versus jay shetty mind valley has much lower um Likes and followers and all that stuff, but they're doing 150 million jay shetty probably 10 million It's like he has status and accolades and all that stuff But people get youtubers who have Thousands, hundreds of thousands of followers, they don't make much money because they don't understand business and offering and a sustainable system.

So when [00:36:00] people, a lot of these coaches come in and they're, they're looking to increase the number of followers or investors who are doing capital raising, like that's not that important in the beginning. It's what's probably important is deeper relationships, uh, how you're moving them through your process, what they're getting your track record, how you're supporting them.

That stuff is more business related. That's strategic. That has a process. You need to keep improving on it. That stuff is day in, day out work without any recognition whatsoever. And people are pulled by shiny stuff that looks great on the outside, but the actual deeper work is, it's no acknowledgement whatsoever.

And that's why the only acknowledgement that matters is what you're doing this for. What is your vision? What is your why? What is your purpose? Wow. When you're sitting down, when you're distracted and you're sitting down trying to work behind your computer, if you don't have an internal drive, there are not, not much external feedback like you do in the corporate world for you to move forward, at least in the beginning, [00:37:00] until you build your community and your people around you.

And then that stuff will come in. But initially it can be a very lonely path, uh, especially when you're in your own space. Um, I don't know if that was clear. Oh, for sure. For sure. And Yeah, it helps me at least that, you know, I'm not trying to gain a bunch of followers, but I am trying to put out helpful content.

And if anything, excuse me, it's practice so that, you know, if, and when I learn and refine my own process, hopefully I can teach others to achieve the same. those who are interested, you know, and I get to spend time with people like you on this podcast where I get to learn from folks who have done incredible things and then hopefully, you know, give that back to whoever wants to listen.

So, yeah, no, I think that's great. And I like, like any marketer you talk to any person who's done great and the podcast and marketing or like Gary Vee, Alex Ramos in these guys, [00:38:00] It was like Alex Sormozy's podcast that's big and the game it took him. He's like for his youtube channel He's like for four years.

I wasn't even expecting anything and nobody knew about me It was actually four years and most podcasts actually pick up around three to four year mark But now on average you look at most people can get past and I think it's a few dozen episodes Why because they started it for an outcome in mind versus the process garyvee said says the same It's like if you get the same thing if you compare two people You One person starts it because they're dedicated to it because they enjoy the process they're learning from it They're growing through it versus another person who starts it because they want to get some leads from it I guarantee you the person who is enjoying it That's more sustainable and that will sustain for the next two years and three years and somehow just picks up and everybody sees now They have thousands of followers.

It's like oh we should follow that But you don't know what that person was feeling and thinking now you have an outcome in mind, which is leads It's it's a lot of work to maintain something. Why if you don't have an intrinsic drive towards [00:39:00] it External things are not enough. This is why most entrepreneurs are not Extra externally driven by it only they're not just driven by money Actually, they're much more driven by the intrinsic rewards of solving problems going towards the things that matter to them having that sense of freedom Being able to contribute in the way that matters to them.

Like there are several reasons that are underneath the The tip of the iceberg that most people don't see and a lot of people jump in for the promise of this making you money But you better be sure this if this feels aligned with you as a person Um, and i've had i've worked with many investors who've changed direction because they realize that That is like, no, this is not for me.

I've worked with many coaches who have changed direction. It was like, no, no, no, this is not for me. Um, because they had to go deeper, other kinds of entrepreneurs would that pick something, but it was, they were struggling. They weren't struggling because there was something wrong with the business because they were not in it fully.

They just, the sustainability of it is directly related to how much it matters to [00:40:00] you in relation to the path that you're taking internally. And then there's the external world that will come in at some point. But until that comes in. You won't be able to sustain it. This is why most businesses will crash within two years, not because business is complicated, straightforward process.

And people who, who actually start businesses, they've done much more complicated things. They're usually engineers, doctors, and all sorts of things, software analysts. And I'm like, you've done much more complicated things than run a business. Why is it that you will fail? Because it's an emotional problem.

It's a deeper emotional and spiritual problem that they haven't worked out. It's not part of their path, so it's easier to give up and they can't sustain it. Um, but when you look at somebody who might not have much of an education, they can figure out business very quickly. Uh, Robert Kiyosaki talks about all you need to do is just be not even a high school graduate.

I think he's at eighth grade level for you to be able to do business. And many people are less educated. So how are they able to figure it out? They have something else. They build emotional resilience. They know their path forward. [00:41:00] They know why it matters to them. They might not be able to articulate these things, but they've developed it either through their life or somebody has taught them or they've learned life has forced them to learn that or they've had mentors or something like that.

And usually more often than not, people have mentors and coaches. They might not even call them mentors and coaches, but they have them. Right, right. Environment and the people you associate with matter. But what I'm really hearing is to love the process. And that is something that is so Intrinsic or so personal, but what I do see is the key to, the key to success is consistency.

And I see it in two parts, consistency in terms of how often you show up. So it's like getting those reps in and that the word you kept using was sustainable. It's sustainable if you truly love the process, but there's also consistency in your. The way you show up, like, in your [00:42:00] behavior or your authenticity, what, something I really don't like in, in people, I, I won't say any names, but, you know, when I encounter somebody who's not consistent, like, it's not predictable what type of person I'm going to get, what type of mood or, you know, people are, you know, Can have their moods.

That's complete. That's understandable. I want people to show up as their true self, whatever they're coming in with that day or that moment. But when you don't really know where you stand with someone or how, what their motives are, like if you have a consistent motive to like, I just want to share something that's helpful to somebody, if that's truly authentic to you and that's genuine, the rest will follow.

But if it's just like, I am doing this of the wrong reasons, uh, You're probably not going to have a consistent approach, actually. You're probably not going to be, you know, a predictable person, because you're going to keep trying what you think is going to please the masses. And that's, and that's exactly, and I completely agree that consistency, consistent, if you're a [00:43:00] capital raiser, for example, consistency matters so much.

Um, and most like, if you watch capital raises come, come in and they go out, they will stop, but there are ones that are consistent. Uh, why are they consistent? They're driven by something else. There are investors that are driven by something they've been added for years. Uh, uh, They're in social media day in, day out, uh, not because they're looking for followers, but because this is what matters to them and what helps them sustain that.

And I'm a certified high performance coach is based on a lot of research of the top 15 percent of highest performers in the world and different walks of life. And the research is in 193 different countries. And it's also based on about 20 plus years of coaching experience to, to see how these people at the top level of their career, their life, how did they operate?

And you will find something very clear is that they're consistently was not just driven because they were getting external feedback, like money, status, and accolades. They had that to some degree, but it was more driven by. their own internal [00:44:00] mission. It was more driven by their own conviction. It was more driven by their clarity.

It was more driven by the kind of network they developed around themselves, which was based on who they were. And what, so they had to create something that was sustainable. And that sustainability is very hard to create. And that, which is starts with consistency, but most people give up. And we're living in a world where you read a lot of these books and were, um, I won't name any names, but what you will, what you will hear as well.

Discipline is hard. You must do this. You must sacrifice. You must suffer. I don't, I don't, they, they're sharing. I don't think they're accurately describing this whole thing at all. If I tell you that I'm disciplined to be a coach, it would be an accurate, inaccurate. The effect of it is discipline, but the reason for it is completely different.

If somebody is very disciplined and working out, I guarantee you, they enjoy doing that to some degree. Because I, I know people who are very disciplined in one area and I bring them to, and to [00:45:00] another space, they can't be disciplined to save their life. So, if you're going to be distant, for example, I wake up every morning at most morning, six in the morning, not because somebody's telling me to wake up or anything, I'm actually excited to wake up to do the things that I want to do, or like I'm excited to jump into my work because it's part of my path.

I do things, uh, I work out actually not because I like enjoy working out that came up afterwards because I need to maintain my energy because I need to do my work. I need to be there for my family. There are certain pieces of my life that were important to me. I wasn't disciplined because I'm disciplined to work.

I'm not disciplined to, to eat better because, uh, or I, I, I'm just a disciplined person that way. I'm not like, if you let me be, I can eat a lot of things. I love food too, but I am because there's a thought process. Like how does this affect energy? Why do I not drink? Because I know it affects my mind, it affects how I communicate.

Why does that, why is that important to me? Because this is what I do. My job is to help communicate certain things. If that, if drinking affects [00:46:00] my thinking process and how I communicate things, then I'm failing at that. The thing that matters to me. That was not an easy decision for me. Like these are decisions I've made because my path is clear or has become clear over time.

But going back to consistency, people don't develop consistency because they don't know who they are. And who they're aspiring to be comes back to those kinds of questions. And, and you will, you can hire productivity coaches. You can hire all sorts of coaches who will give you all sorts of amazing tools, or you can hire business coaches.

None of that will matter if it's not important for you. And you haven't done the work to figure out why it's important to you or not. And also I'm not surprised that you're making better decisions because you have a coach who helps you kind of dig deeper into these areas. We'll ask you the difficult questions that we will not ask ourselves.

Because it's hard to ask ourselves the same questions when I'm stuck. I like, I will work through it a little bit, but I realized that it's like, I need to get on a call with my coach and mentor. I need to figure out what's going on there because I'm not [00:47:00] able to see certain things. I feel stuck. And just the feeling of feeling stuck is more of it's a, it's like an indication that I need support.

I have community members, I have friend members, people will, will kind of pull out my, it's like, Hey, tell me what I'm doing. I literally go on certain, certain calls with my mentors and coach would be like, here's what I'm thinking, poke holes in my thinking. What am I doing wrong here? What am I doing?

Right? Does this make sense? Is like, I'm constantly getting feedback from my environment and I'm constantly trying to figure out what matters to me. And I guarantee you, most people who are not. Their path is not working out. They're not doing that. They're always busy doing something, but they haven't stepped back and worked out, worked through what really matters to them.

As soon as they do that, all of a sudden a magical thing starts to happen. They start to get focused. They start to get consistent. They start to, uh, get rid of all sorts of distractions that don't matter to them. They start to become disciplined, but discipline is more of an effect than it is a [00:48:00] cause most people assume it's a cause.

It's like, it's the thing in itself. No, it's more of an effect. Money is an effect of doing business, right? Um, people think money is the thing. No, it's not. It's you putting the thing that's of value out in the marketplace, whether it's in the investing world or any other business, your health is more of an effect of what you do on a day to day basis.

Uh, your personality is more of an effect of what you do on a day to day basis, what you think, what you feel. And very few people are intentional around this. And I don't blame people for that because. Our, our family systems, our educational systems, uh, have failed in that area many times, and, and I don't blame parents or teachers or any of that stuff because the, the systems have gone corrupted for a long time.

Um, and we're kind of like at the tail end of the corrupted systems where we're kind of getting the worst pieces of information to apply in our life. But when you actually dig deeper and you find out [00:49:00] there's so much that that's there's to learn and apply. And once you figure that out and you figure out your path, life becomes simpler.

It won't become, it won't become easy, but it becomes simpler. And you will develop the resiliency to move towards becoming a better version of you who will be able to tackle challenges better, will be able to go through almost anything. And you will not look at challenges as a negative thing. It's just a part of your growth.

You will not look at struggles in business and life as that. But if you haven't done the deeper work, you will always struggle. And it's just I don't care what tools you have. I don't care what you have in there So my biggest thing would be is to take the time to step back from your life Do the work if you know how to do it work on it yourself get a coach get a mentor Find a community don't do this on your own It's not worth it because you're gonna waste about 10 years and I can tell you there are a lot of people I meet I wish I did this 10 years ago.

I'm like, why didn't you do it 10 years ago? Because I didn't have the support. [00:50:00] I didn't know how to work through it. Um, uh, a lot of investors I meet that I was actually going to do a video. I've just heard of three investors that lost their marriages. I know exactly why they went through that. I was able to save at least two investors marriages just this past year.

Um, help them do that. Not because I'm so great, but they had to step back and reprioritize and figure out what really matters here. And they could have easily gone in that path. I've helped a bunch of people save their businesses. Why? Because I had to get them to pull out of the busyness and actually focus on the things that truly matter.

That doesn't happen because we live in the culture especially in North America of busy, busy, busy, busy, busy doesn't equate to you achieving anything. It just means that you're, you're a busy bee, but are you doing things that actually take you towards what matters?

There's so much in that and it's beautiful and it brings us to the top of the hour, which is almost a perfect way to close. [00:51:00] But there are three things that I'd want to pull out of the many great pearls you just gave us. So discipline, challenging questions and support. So about discipline, where It's not so much about punishment.

It's more actually about doing the things that will return you to your joy or to the things that matter to you. So when you're really clear on that, the discipline comes quite easily. Actually. I like your example of, you know, you can be really disciplined in the gym, but if that probably fills you in a way that being disciplined in.

playing chess might not be right. So not that gym rats can't be good chess players, but just an example. So, so discipline is not about the punishment, but bringing you back to what matters, but understanding what matters brings me to that second part, which is asking yourself those challenging questions or really pausing to reflect.

And you know, Admittedly, in my session with my coach yesterday, I found myself resisting, but you know, when [00:52:00] you said it that way, it made so much sense. I'm like, of course I'm resisting because we are poking holes in what I thought I had conviction in. And he's asking me questions that are actually getting me deeper.

It's, it's difficult. So that's why it's, I'm not sitting here with ease and, you know, it's, it, these are difficult, tough questions, but I'm, I'm setting aside the time and investing myself in figuring that out with a coach. And so that's the third thing, which is the support is to have that community, have the right people around you, hire a coach, you know, just.

Get that support so that you're not that person that says, why didn't I do this 10 years ago? So if you like what you heard today, buy, sell and song. com is one way to connect with you. But before we fully close out with how we can find you online, any closing advice that you have for our listeners?

Oh, it's a cliche statement, but. Before you do anything else, I mean, continue to do what you were doing, but figure out who you are. If you have [00:53:00] confusions about who you are deep down and what matters to you and what you're going towards, that should be enough of an indication for you to put effort in that area.

Uh, and, and maybe that's what I'll, um, I'll leave with value, whether you work with me or not, there's a lot of value I can give you. So if you're interested in figuring that path out, just Just message me on Facebook or LinkedIn. Uh, just say 10 X with Amanda, something like that. And I'll give you access to my course that I sell for 4.

97. It will take you from vision to, uh, your strategy to probably figuring out what your priorities are. Priorities might be based on that bringing out how you can communicate that to the people around you. At least that will get you started And i've given amanda a pdf to go through that There are some trainings it will get you started on that path And then you can figure out what to do after that, but I give a lot of resources there So that will keep you busy for a little bit and and get you to actually Step back and [00:54:00] rethink and a lot of people who've gone through it and they're like, holy shit I haven't thought about any of this stuff in this way for a while You Uh, as long as I remember, and I work with people on average, anywhere from 30 year old to 60 year olds, and a lot of these people are in 40, 50, and they haven't figured out these things in their life, and that's not uncommon.

Um, uh, but, uh, just send me a message, uh, either my team member, I'll respond on LinkedIn or Facebook, just put 10 X with Amanda, and I'll give you a coupon code that will get you my course for free. Thank you so much, Faisal, very generous of you. So folks, get out there, find yourself. And if you need help with that, find Faisal and the link to the PDF and his website and other ways to find him will be in the show notes.

Thank you so much for being here with us. Thank you, Amanda. I appreciate you.