Step-by-step process to find great talent to hire with Paul Sjoberg

Owner of True North Realty and Leverage It, (LIT) – Paul Sjoberg

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I’m thrilled to have Paul Sjoberg on the show. Paul has been listening to Eventual Millionaire for about 5-6 years.

He is a serial entrepreneur and owns True North Realty and Leverage It, (LIT). He’s a father (4x), a husband, a son, a brother, a believer, a Gator, and doing everything possible to be the best version of himself.

In this episode, Paul will talk about his transition from being an employee to an entrepreneur, how he runs his business and family life, and how he hires and manages his people.

Few things you will learn from Paul:

Paul’s transition from being an employee to an entrepreneur
When is the right time to hire
Step-by-step process in find a good talent with a security clearance
How to manage and motivate employees
How to pick your ideal clients
How to have manage your time for business and family effectively

Paul’s Website:

ThreeActionThursday.com

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Masters: Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I?m Jaime Masters and today on the show, I am really excited. Apparently, he?s been listening to the show for five, six years, because we looked back through emails from a long time. His name?s Paul Sjoberg. He runs two businesses. He?s a serial entrepreneur with True North Realty and Leverage IT, now LIT. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Sjoberg: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I?m excited.

Masters: When I had you coming on the show, I knew I ?knew you.? But then, having you forward that email of how you weren?t a millionaire yet, and now that you have two seven-figure businesses, is ridiculously impressive. Can you tell us about a little bit about the before and why you even started listening to this show to being with?

Sjoberg: Sure. I?ve always considered myself somebody who?s got a growth mindset. Coming out of college, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and I was working for a large government contractor at the time. Actually, the real estate market in the 2004-2005 timeframe was going crazy, especially in Washington, D.C. To try to get an angle or an edge, I actually got my real estate license. It just had parallel paths on both those spaces. I never dropped one for the other. It?s kind of just grown over time.

Masters: When you were in it, you were technically working for somebody else. How did you actually get out of working for someone else? I mean, Leverage IT is your own company, and you?ve got your own resources and your own team now. How did you go and transition?

Sjoberg: That?s a great question. Time and opportunity and good timing. So, the large integrator that I was working for was a small company that you might have heard of called Lockheed Martin. It was actually the largest IT provider to the federal government at the time. They decided to sell their IT services business and focus on what everyone knows them for: airplanes, helicopters, and those kinds of things. Kind of in that intermediate turmoil framerate is when I left and started my own company at that point. Actually, my very first subcontract was right back with them. That was kind of an interesting little thing.

Masters: What year was that? Because that?s the funny thing, too. When people leave, they?re like, ?Oh, how do you start from scratch?? You?re like, ?Well, I already knew all the people from before,? right?

Sjoberg: Yeah. I started the company two and a half years ago. A little more than two and a half years ago. It?ll be three years come January. Basically, I bootstrapped it. For the next eight months, it was just me working and putting every dollar back into the business. Then, I started staffing since then, and we?ve grown significantly since then. 300 percent in the last twelve months alone.

Masters: Let?s walk through that just a little bit, because that is kind of insane. I know you?ve been in the space before. When someone has the skillset, you know the ins and outs easier than starting a brand-new industry. But still, starting from yourself and then ? how many people are on your team right now?

Sjoberg: Yeah, we?re up to nine. Employee number 10 starts soon, and then we have about 12 in the pipeline.

Masters: Walk me through what that?s like, because I?m assuming that when you?re just you, then you get another contract, you start adding it up. You?re like, ?Okay, I?m going to hire another person.? How do you do the ? when to hire is the right time to hire?

Sjoberg: I kind of have a different policy than a lot of people. A lot of people will leverage or use venture capital or some sort of outside funding, but I had made the commitment very early to be bootstrapping this thing. Basically, I had all the connections to get subcontracts, but in our space, there?s a shortage of people and engineers to do the work, especially with the right credentials and security clearances. Basically, it?s slow-growth model, finding the right people, to fulfill the hard positions for mostly our prime contractors. We support a lot of the large integrators. The Rapions, the Northern Clemmons, the Lockheed Martins of the world.

Masters: Were you really good at hiring before this? Tell me more about that?

Sjoberg: We tried to differentiate our ad leverage information technologies, where it?s the people-first model versus a mission-first model. We?re really focused on employee engagement. [Audio cuts out] [00:04:04] differentiate in this space because we?re in the business of protecting the United States from outside folks that might want to do us harm. It?s often mission-first in this space, post-September 11th, the funding has decreased significantly, believe it or not. Large companies, and even smaller companies, are having a hard time offering all the benefits, time-off, and all of those things to their employees.

We really scaled everything back from the overhead perspective and really have been focused on a people-first model, and it?s been successful in recruiting.

Masters: So, hopefully you get the better talent, which will retain longer, therefore ? okay. You?re building this for the long haul, which, hopefully what most entrepreneurs listening to the show should be trying to do, right? Not just trying to get people in, make much money, and get them out. How do you find, especially in your industry ? can you walk me through the step-by-step, because it?s tough to find regular good talent, let alone really good talent with a security clearance?

Sjoberg: I don?t think I have any special sauce, other than the fact that we?re really focused on people who have significant careers, for the most part, and have worked for just a small amount of companies. People who have proved they have longevity in the business. I have resumes that come across my desk all the time that have 15 years of experience, but they worked for 10 or 11 companies. That?s not someone that I really want to represent my brand, someone who?s only going to be there for one year or two years, and then move on to something else.

We?re really focused on securing long-term subcontracts and then only hiring people who are looking really for a change, maybe a small company change. We?re offering that and also just above average benefits and a really high-touch kind of philosophy, even though the majority of our workforce is distributed on the costumer sites and I don?t have a physical location that actually supports that.

Masters: Which is great for overhead, but not as good for employee culture.

Sjoberg: I have to double down . [00:06:06] fully down on a lot. We?re putting a lot of things in place, a lot of different tactics that I?ve learned from different industries, some from the restaurant industry. I actually had an interesting discussion with the woman who runs the largest janitorial service in Cincinnati, Ohio, and how she increased her employee engagement and drove higher retention.
I?m just trying to take little hacks and little things from all over the place to be high-touch, to be people-focused, and really have a holistic view on the people that we?re hiring. Not just the people that have the right security skills and the right clearance, but people who are driven and people who want to do better in their life overall. Wake up the next day being a better person than they were the day before.

Masters: Which are better to work with. Anyway, the fact that you got tactics from janitorial is also ridiculously impressive, because their turnover and the types ? because they usually pay a lot less. Can you give us some of the tactics that you?ve been pulling from other places and implementing?

Sjoberg: Sure. There?s an interesting book called Dream Manager, which is actually written particular organization and I actually got to talk to the CEO and founder, who the whole story is written about. Basically, the established the Dream Manager role: Someone who meets with the employees off the holistic view of the persons to find out what the challenges were.

Some of it is pretty basic from their point of view. Most of their employees were taking public transportation. If they could offer van service, it will increase the likelihood of that person being able to make it to work. But probably that?s more analogous to us is people want to buy homes or people will have different goals in life, and just listening those things and how the company will support them holistically, outside of just what they want to do technically at work.

Masters: How do you manage all of that, then, too? Because everybody?s like, ?Oh, I got goals, or the goal is to leave here as soon as I can.? How do you actually help with that?

Sjoberg: For example, honestly, it?s really good listening. It?s listening to your employees. I had an employee last year, and her husband, one of their life dreams was to go to the Indy 500. I had no clue, at the time, how much it costs to go to the Indy 500 or anything like that, but she . [00:08:23] for the business. It was actually the first employee we hired, so I felt really impassioned that she took the jump to join our team. The tickets weren?t all that expensive, and so, I surprised them at our end of the year banquet with tickets to the Indy 500. That?s not something anyone in our engineering space or anyone in our defense contractor space typically would do.
Masters: It?s funny when you think about how simple some of it ? I told this story once before on the podcast. My mom used to be a secretary ? still is a secretary of one company who really didn?t care. This company, who pays her pretty much the same, does so many things, and she?s like, ?They are the best company in the world.? I?m like, the difference of what she?s actually doing day-to-day is almost nil, but they actually care. How did you actually find out that the woman wanted the Indy 500? In the quarterly reviews or just chatting with them? How do you actually cultivate that or pay attention?

Sjoberg: We meet with them monthly, and then obviously I?m taking notes during that . [00:09:28] there?ll be more people doing it just besides me, talking with the employees and that sort of thing. At our size now, it?s definitely scalable for me to do it, but in the future, we?re going to have second-tier folks that buy into that same philosophy. That?s what we?re really focused on.

From a corporate perspective, there are other things. There?s a gentleman named John Ruhlin that?s got a great book called Giftology. We implemented some of those things as well throughout the years of prizing our employees with gifts, not just on birthdays and holidays, but also random times throughout the year.

Masters: I love that book, too, so give me a little piece of that also, because I feel like ? my love language is gifts, so I?m okay with that. I love getting random things in the mail from people, but I know a lot of people aren?t receptive to that. How have your people been really receptive to gifts, instead of being, ?Oh, he?s trying to buy me off again?? Do you know what I mean? There?s a lot of weird ? if gifts aren?t your schtick.

Sjoberg: I?m sure there are some employees that appreciate it more than others, but I think anyone can appreciate a kind note saying how well they?re doing and how much their work is appreciated. In effect, sometimes that comes that the gifts and sometimes doesn?t. It just works overall. It?s just a philosophy we believe in and something that we?re implementing with the company and we plan to do as we continue to scale.

Masters: Do you systemize this ? because you?re also running your company, right? So, are you going, ?Okay, this weekend, I have to write Sarah a thank you note, and I have to get so-and-so a gift for next week.? How do you manage all of those different things?
Sjoberg: In full honesty, I do have a virtual assistant who helps me out with all of that. It?s not just me doing everything. She helps me out and a lot of that arena and making sure I don?t forget things. I do have calendar notices for every employee for when they started with the company, so that I know their one-year anniversary and I don?t forget it.

Just through discussions, I really try to concentrate hard on who are important to them on their lives, their spouses, their . [00:11:28], and not necessarily what?s going with them, but what frame of life they?re in, whether the employee has to kids in college, or whether there?s four kids at home and they?re involved in baseball all the time. Those are the types of things that I try to keep top of mind when I?m interacting with my employees.

Masters: That way, if they?re like, ?Oh, I have to run home early,? you?re like, ?Okay, I get it. You have kids. You want to see a baseball game,? Instead of being all like, ?No, we have all these things that we have to do. You can do it tomorrow.? You know what I mean?

Sjoberg: It?s just having a high emotional intelligence when it comes to those things, because if you take care of the people, the mission will take care of itself. That?s really kind of our mantra.

Masters: Which is very interesting, because I used to be an engineer, and emotional intelligence on the engineering side, I just know a lot of the guys I used to hang out with and you?d be like, ?Okay, you?re right.? In the industry that you?re in, the fact that you brought up emotional intelligence is amazing, don?t get me wrong, but how do you deal with that, if you don?t feel like other people on the team have it? Or, you?re specifically hiring for that?

Sjoberg: I am definitely looking at that as a discriminator. Sometimes, the top technical talent falls into the typical stereotype of not really wanting to be high-touch or have a squishy boss, as I like to take it. I?m just open and honest with them. ?Please tell me if this isn?t your type of thing, then you don?t have to necessarily participate in every single thing that we do that you would consider soft and squishy.?

But I think it?s something that?s missing in this arena that we are supplying it as a discriminator. People are vibing with it, and every person who currently works for LIT is somebody who I either worked with in the past or somebody who?s worked with somebody who?s worked for me. It?s because they?re buying into the philosophy and it?s growing organically from that.

Masters: You would rather have the option of going, ?Yeah, he actually does care more, even if it is squishy,? right? Rather than just because of that one piece instead of it. That?s awesome. The next question that literally pops up, though, is what do you give them for gifts? I feel like I?ve done a lot of gifts and now I?m tapped out a little bit. I know listening is very important, but also, I?m a gift-giver. Give me any tips that you have on giving cool, awesome gifts.

Sjoberg: Gift giving is not my greatest skillset, so I?m constantly looking for ideas and jotting things down. The last one we did was olive oil samples for cooking. That was an interesting one that a lot of people hadn?t received seen before. I just love the idea that whenever they?re using it for cooking, they?d think about where it came from. Those type of things. Trying to focus on things that are for the household, and none of the things that we send are branded. Nothing says LIT on it or anything like that. It?s really focused on them and how they may use the product. Of course, they?re going to be reminded about where those things came from when they use them.

Masters: That?s a really great idea. We?ve done waterproof notepads that go in the shower, which are $12 on Amazon. They are amazing, by the way. They?re so simple and little, but people are like, ?Do you have more of those?? It is an interesting thing. I love how you put the nuance because, if it?s for the household, it?s not like you?re talking about crazy expensive stuff. It?s not like it has to be a big deal. It?s just the thought, right?

Sjoberg: Absolutely. I would definitely recommend John Rulhin?s book, Giftology, because not only is John a fantastic guy ? I haven?t had the opportunity to meet him ? but the book, I think, is something in our society in general that could go a long way.

Masters: Instead of crazy Christmas, everybody just goes, ?Yeah, everything?s great.? It?s like, ?Oh no, throughout the entire year, you can actually look as if you care about your people, because you do.? What?s amazing, though, especially when we were talking about the beginning, is how important this is to you, because there are humongous companies in the space and you know you can grow into something huge for what you?re doing, and yet you?re doing this slow-and-steady model, which, no offense, most people wouldn?t do if they know that they can have all the contracts and get a lot more contracts at a time, right?

Sjoberg: Sure. There are plenty of people in my space who grow their companies ? usually the acquisition timeframe is between 30 and 50 people. Their goal is, ?How quickly can I get to 30 to 50 people to sell or to move on to the next thing?? I really am going to this for the long-term because I think it?s needed in the space. I?m a people person and I just happen to be playing in an engineering world. I?m just trying to be the best I can to bring some sunshine to an area where I think it?s been significantly beaten down over the last five to ten years.

Masters: How do you test for emotional intelligence beforehand, because that?s the other piece? We?ve got the skillset, we?ve got the credentials. It seems like their longevity is really good, but then the personality and the culture and trying to get them all to jive together. How are you managing that? How do you hire for that?

Sjoberg: So far, it?s basically good people, no good people. It?s sharing our philosophy with current employees and telling them our referral model is not based on how many people we can plug-and-chug through the company. It?s based on quality and longevity. In fact, in our space, it?s quite common to give a current employee a referral bonus for having someone brought on. Just a flat fee bonus, maybe $2,000-3,000, something like that. But I think that incentivizes people to throw in as many resumes as possible.

Instead, we?ve chosen a model where for every year that you and that person are both employed with the company, you?ll be paid out a bonus and perpetuity, as long as you?re both working with the company, to prove that we?re really set on longevity, and that?s why we?re hiring people.

Masters: I?ve never heard that. I used to work in tech and it was three grand a pop for a referral, and I remember I?m like ? on the TV, and I did four or five, and on my last day, I grabbed my TV and was like, ?See you later, guys! Hope you work out 30?? because it was a 30-day bonus. Take the money and run, right? I never heard somebody actually paying attention to how long the employee?s going to stay there and continue to give that. That?s amazing.

Sjoberg: Yup. So, we?re definitely focused on it, and using our incentive packages and our employee engagement stuff to really back up what our vision for the company is. I?m a firm believer on that. You can?t say one thing, and then have your systems set up for something else.

Masters: How amazing. Integrity is very important. To me, some people don?t even realize that they?re out of alignment of a way that they core or feel. It sounds like you?re very in-touch with that, and you?re an engineer, which is usually counterintuitive. Has that been innate with you? Do you really try to make sure everything?s aligned in your life?

Sjoberg: Most definitely. I try to do the same thing across the board, but the things that I have come up with are mostly because I really believe in community, so I try to take things from a lot of different places. I am involved in a couple of entrepreneurial communities, and I really try to leverage their . [00:18:39], even though the domains and the companies they built are completely different. I think there are always little things you can kind of steal and take to apply to your realm or to your specific business.

Masters: Growth mindset to the nth degree, which I really appreciate. How do you have time, though? Because you have two businesses, you have kids, and you?re on boards.

Sjoberg: I have four kids. My wife?s the same, first of all, so I have to give her all the credit for putting up with me and getting onboard with the life we lead. I rely heavily on systems, especially on the real estate side. I have a lot of vendors and people I work with on that side that I?ve been doing work with for over a decade. I just have to know and trust they?re going to do their jobs. I have a process for selling and helping people buy homes that, as a potential client of mine, you have to sign up to. If you don?t kind of fit into that mold, then we just don?t do business together.

Masters: That creates a lot less resistance and pain in the butt points. Tell us about creating the system, then ? that?s awesome.

Sjoberg: I took a look at how people are motivated when they buy and sell homes, and I?ve built that into the process. If you don?t have a high motivation level to buy and/or sell, whichever it is, then come talk to me when you do. I have a set of interview questions that kind of follow that model. Also, I?ve been doing this long enough now, and doing this system long enough that I have the statistics to back it. If you follow this model, we will sell your home for 99.5 percent of this price, and we?ll do it in under 15 days.

We choose to deviate from this model when all bets are off at that point, but I have enough deals under my belt to kind of know. Through the interview process and finding out how they?re motivated, you discover very quickly whether they?re someone you want to do business with. In a commission-based space such as real estate, a lot of people will just take whatever client comes their way. [Audio cuts out] [00:20:43] that very purposely. We choose our clients very wisely.

Masters: I love that advice. I say I don?t know how many different times to my clients like, ?Oh, you see this problem there. You remember how we said that wasn?t an ideal client, but you said yes anyway?? I?m just saying, right?

Sjoberg: It translates perfectly to the IT space in the same way we hire. If I accepted anybody who came off the street with a pulse and a clearance and a sniff of the right technical skillset, then they?re maybe the person who doesn?t suit ? doesn?t fill their timecard out regularly or they leave after 18 months, or whatever else. We?re really trying to focus on slow growth, doing things the right way, hiring the right people, and working with the right clients.

Masters: Everybody else is going, ?Well, I know he can do it because he already had a successful,? or whatever it is. You can pick and choose your clients. How did you determine, at the beginning, ?They have to be highly motivated,? especially at the beginning, when you?re like ?I?m just trying to get clients and trying to get better at this??

Sjoberg: I mean, there?s definitely lessons learned over time. If someone calls me, at some point, you?re really excited to get a client and you just accept them, right? Then, before you know it, especially in the real estate side, they?re having you drive all over the geographic area, you?re seeing 50 different houses, and then all of a sudden, they decide to rent. If you had asked the right questions right up front, you would?ve been able to discover that there was some sort of issue that was causing them to be not as highly motivated as you would like them to be, and you would not have wasted all that time and energy.

From a buying perspective, I definitely look for highly motivated folks, folks who are amped up to buy. From a listing perspective, it?s a different set of questions, but it?s the same goal: It?s to find out the motivation level and why they?re moving, and make sure that it?s going to be a good match overall.

Masters: Can you give me an example? Because that?s the other thing: How do you determine that? Is it length? Because I know I see things where a length of time ? are you really ready to buy? Three months? Six months? What are some of the questions that you?re asking to really determine that?

Sjoberg: Sure. On the buying side, you would ask questions like that. Where are you currently living? If they?re on a lease, when is their lease up? Obviously, as they get towards the end of their lease, they?re going to be more motivated to move if they have eight months in their lease. Whatever house I show them, and they fall in love with, they realistically can buy. We tell them that. We don?t want to show you properties that you won?t be able to buy.

I?d be a bad realtor if you fell in love with a property and you ultimately couldn?t buy it. I have to help you do all the due diligence upfront to make sure that the properties I show you are ones that you can actually purchase at the time, whether it?s due to timing, like the ending of a lease, or whether it?s making sure they?re fully qualified across the board financially, and that their financing isn?t going to fall through at the end.

Masters: That?s brilliant. I?m just thinking back when I was 19 and I bought my first house at 19. My lease was still forever, and my real estate agent goes, ?You can usually get out of leases. Just send them a letter.? Nope, I couldn?t. I had to pay for both. It really sucked, but that person was just trying to get me into a house at 19 years old. It was a cheap house, but still, me going, ?Oh, I kind of wish I was smarter.? Lesson learned.

Sjoberg: That comes back to the long term. I want to make your experience so great, and you so happy, that you?re going to refer me to others. If I put you in a situation where you?re paying for your lease and a mortgage, chances are you?re not going to refer me to anyone else.

Masters: Yeah, no. Didn?t work. No. It is funny, the way you think about it, though, because you?re helping people better because you?re able to fit the solution to exactly who they are, instead of trying to fit whatever solution you have to whatever they?ve got, and it kind of gets all cobbled together. That?s when you usually get the pain in the butt ? not that I don?t remember back I was 19, but I?m sure I was not very nice ? as mean as I could be as a 19-year-old kid. But, you being able to have the integrity to go, ?Hey, you know what? This timing thing isn?t going to work out.?

How do you know that? Especially if you?re somebody that wants eight months and they?re like, ?Well, I really don?t have a lot of time, so I?m going to be looking once a month, or every?? You know what I mean? Because people fudge it because they do get excited.

Sjoberg: You have to talk to them about what their goals are, and if their goal is of being in a home and being in a solid financial situation as they go through their process, then looking eight months in advance is not the best idea. Maybe starting to look three months in advance or finding some happy medium there that would satisfy them as good. But a lot of it, too, is geography and making sure that they have where they want to look down to a decent geographic space, and not all over God?s creation.

Masters: Maine is a very big place, exactly, and we [inaudible] [00:25:43] people. I had no idea. My friend just became a real estate agent, and she?s like, ?I?m driving up town.? I?m like, ?Why are you doing that?? She?s like, ?They wanted to.? That?s not a good reason! No offense. It is if they?re already your client, but the fact that you?ve already got the system figured out. How long did it take you to get ? you sound like a systems guy anyway, but how long did you get it to really be refined for this?

Sjoberg: Probably like three or four years. I worked for a brokerage for the first four years of my real estate career, and then I transitioned to True North Realty in 2009 and started my own brokerage. I always joke that I was working for the largest defense contractor in the world while I was running the smallest real estate brokerage in Northern Virginia outside of Washington, D.C. I saw the benefits of working for a big company and a small company at the same time, but once I stood up my own brokerage, I knew that I had to have some systems in place, and things that I was going to do differently from the majority of the community. If you listened to what we said earlier, I did the same thing in the IT space.

Masters: I can. I worked there. That?s the benefit of serial entrepreneurship, of going, ?Oh, I can see different industries, too,? because a lot of similar things work throughout, and we don?t talk to each other enough, at least in my opinion. You?ve had a lot experience. You?re sticking with two for a little while?

Sjoberg: I guess you could say I have three enterprises if you count my household, too. We have four children and they?re fantastic. Obviously, they have their activities and everything as well.
Masters: Which is why your wife is a saint, by the way.

Sjoberg: Yeah. I think for now, I?m happy with what we have and happy with the place where both businesses are. Definitely keeping the slow growth model in mind with both of those businesses.

Masters: Do you want your kids to be entrepreneurs, too? How old are they and are they, like, ?Daddy?s amazing! He?s an entrepreneur.?

Sjoberg: I have two girls and two boys. Girl-boy-girl-boy. They?re 12, 10, 7, and 5. They see what I do. They see how hard I work, but at the same time, I?m there for them when I?m needed. When I?m needed . [00:27:55] every day for them. I?m there for 95 to 99 of dinners and bedtimes. That time?s sacred. They routinely sell stuff out in front of the house. My daughter has an Instagram page where she?s selling slime at school. I?m sure the school probably doesn?t want to hear that. They?re dabbling as much as you can dabble when you?re barely double digits in age.

Masters: Mine got banned for selling slime at school, so I can?t really say anything either. Don?t you feel like it?s an amazing thing, to be able to teach your kids something that especially for me, took a really, really long time, and in doing these interviews, the kids ? I shouldn?t say the kids. The people that are successful earlier had entrepreneurial parents.

I also feel ? I want your perspective on this, because now that I?m such an entrepreneur, I tell the kids, ?Be an entrepreneur.? Now they?re pushing back, ?I?m going to work for someone else.? You are? Now I?m trying to chill. Do you feel like your kids ? you won?t push that on them, or you?ll let them do their own thing? Tell me your advice on what you?re going to give your kids advice.

Sjoberg: Obviously, I?m going to let them know the options and the risks and rewards of it all, but I call myself a reluctant entrepreneur. My dad was a career Air Force military officer, and we moved every two or three years. He didn?t actually own a house until I was out of the house. The things that I?m doing, I basically pushed myself to be a little risky because my dad was at a government job, was relatively safe. I definitely didn?t get an entrepreneur bug from him and from my family. It?s just something that naturally grew over time. Things that I listened to in early and late 2000s have really helped me formulate that.

Masters: How did you get bit by the bug, then?
Sjoberg: I think I saw through real estate initially the benefits of being able to have a small business originally from a personal finance perspective: being able to do a CPRI, being able to put more money away pre-taxed, those type of things. Kind of got me jazzed up and I?m like, ?I don?t have to retire at 65 years old. If I did it this way for a couple of years, I could retire at 55.? Now you look at the possibility of the dates moving in even more as you see what entrepreneurship has to offer and having a high savings rate at the same time.

Masters: I love it. That?s where the engineer, analytical guy comes out. Your system, ?This is what we do 99.5 percent of the time.? Mathematically, it typically is better as an entrepreneur if you?re willing to have the growth mindset that I think you definitely have in learning everything that you?ve done. I love this. I love seeing how ? for me, doing the show, I love these stories. I remember random Skype messages from you ? not Skype, but Facebook messages and stuff like that, and emails like, ?Hey, there?s an update on this. Hey, there?s an update on this and that.? I?ve been going, ?When are we going to have you on the show??

Well, five or six years later, I?ve seen the progress of the entire thing and going ? and seeing you just do the work. Very easy for me to see. I?m not there every day with your poor wife going, ?Oh, he?s gone, doing all work,? but it?s so impressive to just see the commitment, no matter what, to do whatever it takes for the goal you really want to have. I just want to applaud you for that, because I?m sure not a lot of people are applauding you for the amount of commitment.

Sjoberg: Two quick stories. One, over my shoulder here is actually the dream board my wife and I put together, based on what we want our life to look like if money was no object; if money was not an issue. We do that together, and all the activities that my family and I do are driven by that dream board. She?s working just as hard as I am to make that happen, and that?s kind of how we view it. If something in my business life or something in our personal life falls out of alignment, then we re-discuss based on that dream board and go from there.

In the second story I want to tell is: I bought an Eventual Millionaire t-shirt. I think maybe the first round that you ever put out. I don?t remember what year it was. I secretly wore it underneath clothes all the time; during business meetings, all sorts of things. When I did get to net millionaire status, I gave it to my best friend, who is currently wearing it under his clothes and has the same exact goal.

Masters: What?

Sjoberg: I have to thank you for being a part of the journey and let you know that that impact is going on and on, whether you know it or not.

Masters: Oh my gosh, that?s amazing. Those shirts were kind of sucky, so we?ll send you some new shirts that you can give away, because I?ve got a whole bunch more. That is utterly amazing and is also hilarious because the guys that are millionaires that come to the show that have had the shirt don?t wear them anymore either. ?I don?t want to walk around saying I?m an eventual millionaire. I get comments about it,? which is amazing, and I so appreciate it. I will make sure Lenny will send you some, either for the kiddos or for whatever. ?My kids wear them to school.? We get lots of comments. It?s hilarious.

Thank you for sharing the story and I have to start wrapping up with the last question, but you?re awesome. What?s one action listeners can take this week to help move them towards their goal of a million?

Sjoberg: I think I would stay focused on community, learn from the community, and there?s three domains that I think people should focus on: financial intelligence, personal and professional development, and relationship building. If you form communities around those areas, and you have this specific domain you want to be successful in, there?s no doubt that it?s going to pay off and your time and energy, building communities in those areas, will pay off for you.

Masters: I?ve never heard of that. You need to write a book on that just in case nobody?s told you that before, because that?s awesome. That?s exactly what this is about. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can we find out more about you and the business and all that fun stuff online?

Sjoberg: Sure. I do a weekly subscription blog at Three Action Thursday, so people can sign up and see some of my content there. I?m also on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn, and I?m more than happy to engage with people, so please hit me up.

Masters: It?s the number Three Action Thursday?

Sjoberg: It?s actually spelled out. T-H-R-E-E Action Thursday.

Masters: Perfect. We will definitely link it up. I knew you should?ve been writing a book. Good, I?m glad you?re doing a weekly newsletter about some of this stuff. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it.

Sjoberg: Thank you for having me here. I?m so blessed to be here. Thank you.

Tags: Business Owner, entrepreneur podcast, eventual millionaire, hiring the right talent, jaime masters, managing employees, millionaire entrepreneurs, motivating employees, Paul Sjoberg, picking ideal clients, podcast, start-ups / startups, startup entrepreneur, Time Management, top entrepreneurs, Transitioning from employee to entrepreneur

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