The Five F’s: A Holistic Approach to Entrepreneurship
Episode Summary
In this episode of the Free to Grow CFO podcast, Jon Blair and Chris Lang discuss the importance of holistic health for entrepreneurs. They explore the five F's: Faith, Family, Focus, Fitness, and Finances, emphasizing how each aspect contributes to a balanced and successful life. Chris shares his journey in entrepreneurship, the significance of maintaining focus, the role of fitness and nutrition, and the necessity of financial education. The conversation also touches on the importance of setting boundaries between work and personal life to achieve long-term success.
Episode Links
Jon Blair - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathon-albert-blair/
Chris Lang- https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislangsocial/
Free to Grow CFO - https://freetogrowcfo.com/
Move FWD - https://www.movefwd.co/
Key Takeaways
Faith is Foundational: Why understanding your "why" and living with intention impacts everything from decision-making to resilience.
Focus Wins the Day: Learn how eliminating distractions and playing to your strengths drives long-term success.
Finances for the Long Game: Insights on cash flow management and staying financially viable in a world of distractions.
Meet Chris Lang
Chris Lang is a creative entrepreneur from Las Cruces, New Mexico. His focus on brand development and business strategy has helped launch multiple Shopify brands across the apparel, food, and wine industries, generating over 8 figures. Fresh Chile is now in the top 10% of all Shopify stores. He is working on donating over 1,000,000 meals to his community (currently 500,000).
Transcript
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00:00 Introduction
02:32 The Birth of Move FWD
04:50 The Five F's of Life
09:30 The Role of Faith
11:54 Family Dynamics in Business
14:46 The Importance of Focus
22:02 Fitness and Mental Clarity
26:21 The Impact of Processed Foods on Health
28:38 The Importance of Nutrition and Sleep
30:29 Long-Term Success in Business
30:45 Understanding Finances in Business
35:35 Learning from Financial Mistakes
42:54 Setting Boundaries Between Work and Personal Life
48:27 Closing Thoughts
Jon Blair (00:00)
Hey, what's happening everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Free to Grow CFO podcast where we dive deep into conversations about scaling a DTC brand with a profit focused mindset. I'm your host, Jon Blair, founder of Free to Grow CFO. We're the go-to outsource finance and accounting firm for eight and nine figure DTC brands. And today I'm here again with my good friend, Chris Lang. Chris, I think you're the first ever second time guest on the show. Thanks for joining, man. How are things going?
Chris (00:10)
That's a big honor. Yeah, things are going pretty well. Been a been a really great year overall as far as learning so much and yeah grateful to be here again.
Jon Blair (00:46)
Yeah, so today, last time you were here, we were chatting about one of the businesses. I would consider Chris to be kind of a serial entrepreneur. He's got his hands in several different things. We chatted about Fresh Chile the last time he was on, former client of Free to Grow CFO, and really we're chatting about kind of scaling marketing, but ended up having a really great conversation about story, which is something that's so front and center in your content, which I love. But today we're actually talking with Chris about his focus on a separate venture that he has. He's also co-founder of Move FWD. And today what we're gonna be talking about is something a little bit outside of kind of the getting into numbers and scaling, but something that is, I would say, probably even more important, which is how entrepreneurs build and live a life of holistic health, right? Because at the end of the day,
Chris (01:33)
Mm-hmm.
Jon Blair (01:42)
We're all humans. It doesn't matter if we are also DTC brand founders or operators. We are humans, right? And as Chris is a fellow Christian, as we believe, created by God, right? And so we're gonna talk about how entrepreneurs can live a balanced life that includes things like faith, family, focus, fitness, and finances. And so, before we get into chatting about that, Chris, know, the people who listen to show know a bit about your background as it relates to kind of leaning into starting and being a part of the Fresh Chile journey, but walk me through your journey to co-founding Move FWD and walk us through a little bit about what Move FWD does.
Chris (02:20)
Definitely Move FWD is a result of understanding life is more than just about business. And so it's about finding that balance and purpose and business and life. And so what I have noticed over and over again in business, whether it's been successful or whether it's been a, you know, so-called failure on paper, is that there's so many determining factors to what goes into each one of those opportunities. And it has to do with your faith, your family, your focus and your finances. And so I think that's where it's like, I wanted an opportunity to partner with someone, his name is Greg Bowles, he's out of Dallas and he owns the largest home inspection company in DFW area. But he's a friend that I've known, he's a former pastor and he does a lot of coaching consulting with other businesses and entrepreneurs. He was someone who was really strong and his focus and finances and he's also, you know, a of faith and his family are we go on vacations together. And so that's something that we kind of talked about. Hey, let's let's really team up because, know, I was really coming from a place where I was really broken, you know, about, I would say for a few years now and each day is kind of forward in that clarity.
Overall, it's just to help entrepreneurs balance beyond business their lives.
Jon Blair (04:23)
Yeah, man, this is something that's near and dear to my heart. This is manifested, this kind of holistic philosophy about business and life is something that is very pervasive in my personal and business life. I was, and I still am a little bit on the side, an EOS coach, an EOS, for those of you don't know, the entrepreneurial operating system. It's an operating system. It's an actual structure and framework for thinking about planning and running your business. And it doesn't matter if you like StratOps or EOS or you follow a guy like Michael Hyatt who has the full focus planner, whatever. You follow Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey has his own, I forget what his system is called, but all these systems are all, what do they all have in common? Intentionality and purpose, right?
Chris (05:04)
Mm hmm.
Jon Blair (05:19)
And when you get down to the root of it, why does that stuff matter? Because humans were created to live life with a sense of purpose. When you find people that are depressed, in my experience, when you find people that are depressed, they've lost their sense of purpose or they're wrestling with their sense of purpose, right? And when you find people that are happy, they're doing the things they're doing in life, whatever they are, business or otherwise, they're doing them on purpose, right? And the funny thing is, the phrase on purpose is a common phrase. I did this on purpose, right? But if you really think about those words on purpose, it's in alignment with a purpose that gives meaning to the thing that you're doing, whatever that is, right? And so these things, it's funny, in the system scaling up, they tell the people who are implementing that operating system into their business to first do a personal a one page personal plan. I believe it's OPP. And this grid that they create is a grid that across the top has time horizons. So like one year, three years, five years, next 90 days, but down the side it has faith, family, focus, fitness, and finances. The same, they call it the five F's, right? And the reason why we are gonna have a conversation today in relation to those five F's is because when you think about your faith, whatever it is,
Chris (06:36)
Okay.
Jon Blair (06:47)
You think about your family and you think about what you're focusing on, you think about your fitness and your physical health and you think about your finances. Those five F's are a great holistic way to think about your life and that when those things are in balance, we tend to be living life on purpose, right? So the five F's, faith, family focus, fitness and finances, why are those so important to you personally, Chris?
Chris (07:06)
Mm-hmm. Well, I believe it starts with my faith, number one. I mean, that's always the area that I want to make sure that...
you know, I have the most balance and harmony and I feel like that's where I haven't had in the past when I am sort of losing focus or what I feel is kind of not walking in God's path, you know, in my life and for my family's. And so, you know, if I'm not, if I'm not focused on my faith first and my family, you know, fitness, finance, focus, it all, it all suffers because of that. so faith is important too, because it's ultimately what I believe that I'm called to be on this earth for, is to be a servant and to serve others. And if I'm serving myself or serving my needs or serving myself in a loathing type of way, then everything else will kind of falter. so even though faith has always been important to me, as we learn in life, there's all these kind of peaks and valleys that we go through that where faith becomes a different priority for us. for me making it the priority every day that I wake up has been the overall change in my life.
Jon Blair (08:39)
Well, and so it's interesting that you say he starts with faith because you and I are both Christians, so we believe in the God of the Bible, right? Even if you don't believe in the same faith that Chris and I do, everyone, I believe, has some form of faith in their life. It, in more general terms, maybe, is what you believe about the purpose of mankind, right? And everyone believes in some purpose, even if that purpose is...for me to just live a selfish life and enrich myself. That is still your version of faith, right? And so, it actually, as a human, it has to start with faith, which is maybe we'll call it your worldview, right? Because that's the lens through which you're going to view your family, your focus, your fitness, and your finances. So actually, whether you think you have faith or not, I guarantee you do.
Chris (09:16)
Mm-hmm.
Right. Right.
Jon Blair (09:30)
We all do as humans. It may not be the same as mine and Chris's, but you have some view about the world and that's where it all starts, right? The second one, family. What is the importance to you, not just of family in general, but how that helps you excel in business and in life? Making sure that that's number two on the list.
Chris (09:30)
All
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Yeah, you know, I think a lot of people think, you know, in business, I'm doing this for my family. I think that's kind of like the most common answer that we would probably, you know, hear I'm doing this for my family, doing this for my family. you know, if we really were to strip away if we weren't entrepreneurs, you know, or business people, and then what is our role in our family? And you know, for me, it is kind of to ingrain sense of security in them. And that security is not always financial. But it's a it's a loving security that they have. And so you know, for me, you know, making sure that they feel emotionally and physically loved is, is what kind of family means to me, it doesn't mean about just taking care of them. That's all a byproduct of kind of making sure that your family's emotional needs are taken care of because
Jon Blair (10:24)
Mm-hmm.
Chris (10:47)
We've seen it so many times where you have a lot of families where their physical needs are met through the roof, but emotionally, like the family's a wreck. Divorce is on the horizon. The kids are going to rebel. And that's something where my wife and I are just very intentional with our two children. And we are a family and these other things, they don't define us.
it may be what we do. But they don't define us. And we're there for each other, kind of first and foremost. And to that note, too, you know, my wife and I will be celebrating 20 years next, next summer. And thank you so much. And it's because we've learned that we're there to serve, you know, one another. And it's not always about our needs first. And it's not, you know, from a selfish view. But we're ultimately there.
Jon Blair (11:30)
Congrats, man.
Mm-hmm.
Chris (11:46)
for the same purpose of really to glorify God. And what does that look like through our marriage, through our family, and through our relationships?
Jon Blair (11:54)
It's funny, so our pastor always says, people always tell me that marriage is 50-50. He's like, marriage is not 50-50. It's 100%, 100%. Meaning that each person is in it 100% every single day, pulling their own weight in the marriage, right? In the relationship. I don't just come to the table 50%. If you think about any relationship, it's 100%, 100%. Like, you gotta be there, you're...in it 100% regardless of what happens on the other side, right? But I think another interesting thing I was thinking about as you were talking and like weaving in the entrepreneurial spirit with family is actually something you posted on LinkedIn I think over the weekend about your boys, having your boys with you at the farmers market, know, slinging goods from your, from one of your other companies, right? And the point being, the point being like there's a way that we can take what we do as entrepreneurs.
Chris (12:42)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jon Blair (12:53)
Right? And share that with our family and not just use the business, not just use being an entrepreneur to make money for the family, but to actually teach them entrepreneurial qualities so that they can carry on. This is the future generation, right? Our kids are the future generation and what gets kids excited? How do kids know what to do or what they could possibly do later in life? They have to be exposed to it. And that's a big job as parents. I don't expect every one of my kids to necessarily start a business or business is the way that I have. But I believe every person has to have some amount of entrepreneurialism. Because really, strip the word business aside, what is an entrepreneur? An entrepreneur is someone who sees a gap in the world and fills it. Sees a need that's unmet and fills it.
Chris (13:34)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Jon Blair (13:47)
And so actually I think everyone has a duty to be entrepreneurial in some way, shape or form. I think stay at home moms have just as much of a duty to be entrepreneurial, right? By seeing an unmet need and pulling together resources. like actually here's another way to think about it. An entrepreneur sees the landscape of resources, things that could be pulled together to be used for something. They see a gap somewhere in the world with an unmet need and they go grab resources and they pull them together and they meet that need. You do not have to start a business to be entrepreneurial. And as it relates to being an entrepreneur and family, that's a big duty that I believe that we all have as entrepreneurs is to raise up the next generation of entrepreneurs, whether they're going to start businesses or not. So the next thing on the list of the five F's is focus. This is near and dear to my heart because I am a productivity nerd. I've read so many of the books. I'm a huge fan of Michael Hyatt. He has a book that was like, can see it on my bookshelf over here. It's like super formative in my life. It's called Free to Focus, right? And the older I get, the more that I find that my stress and lack of achievement is actually self-induced. I allow it to happen to myself. And you know what it always is? I lose focus. I allow the unimportant to creep in and block me from the important. And one of my other pastors, he used to always say, hey, are you minoring in the majors and majoring in the minors? Meaning like, if you're majoring in the minors, you're filling your life with these minor details, these minor like tasks and things that are not of major importance.
Chris (15:20)
Great.
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Jon Blair (15:41)
You wanna be majoring in the majors, not majoring in the minors, right? So talk to me a little bit about the importance of focus when it comes to being a holistically healthy entrepreneur.
Chris (15:41)
Right.
Yes, I think, you know, this is something that I am, I am in the midst of in my life of trying to understand what that means and also to achieve it meaning. On paper, I have eight different businesses that is not focus. Right on any level, you know,
Jon Blair (16:13)
Yeah.
Chris (16:16)
And so I'm actually in the midst of having all these difficult conversations with partners where I don't believe I can add value to this business anymore. I need to step away and I need to also have other conversations where, I need to double down on this business. What does that look like? And so, you know, for me, I think one of the
Jon Blair (16:33)
Mm-hmm.
Chris (16:38)
I don't want to say biggest lies. But we just think we can, you know, as entrepreneurs, we think we can just achieve anything once we've achieved one thing. And it's not the case, you know, I've, you know, have failed miserably at a restaurant and a coffee shop. Why? That's not my skill set. It's not e commerce. It's not digital marketing. And, you know, I felt spectacularly at both, right. So again, it was because I wasn't focused.
that have led to some of my biggest mistakes that have also cost me financially as well, right? So again, I need to make sure that I'm focused and in a way that I can be serving my partners from a business standpoint and in the greatest capacity that I can. And as you know, with Free to Grow, financial cash flow is the most important thing that we can achieve in business and and in profits. And so we need that. And when you diversify yourself to where nothing is really making money at the end of the day, then you're basically in a zero sum game because you've lost your lack of focus.
Jon Blair (17:52)
Man, there's a lot there that I want to dig into. No, no, mean, it's that such so a couple of things. One, I've actually I don't know. I know that you know, Nick Shackleford, but he he'd post a lot of content on LinkedIn about his various businesses and and what one thing he I think this was last week he was talking about. This made me feel better because I'm I'm kind of like you. I'm like starting.
Chris (17:54)
I'm... No, it is.
Yeah.
Right.
Jon Blair (18:19)
I'm looking at starting all these different things. I currently have three businesses. And sometimes I wonder like, is this a trap? Is this a mistake? And Nick was talking about in his content recently, think again, I think last week, he was like, I think there's a lot of people who would kind of condemn what I'm doing, owning so many businesses. But what I have done is I've brought in partners that compliment my weakness. They have a strength in that business, right? And the role that I play in that business is where I am strong, right? And so he's not, the point being he's not just going in, there's still intentionality. There's actually, what he doesn't realize is he's saying there is a focus that he has within each of those businesses. So I actually do believe there's a way, I do believe there's a way to start multiple businesses, but be very intentional about what your role is in each of those businesses. And what I think I'm starting to realize is, Free to Grow, me and my business partner, Jeff, we are the main operators in Free to Grow. For this season in life, Free to Grow is the right place for me to be one of the key operators. All other businesses that I start, I do not have the time to be the key operator. I can be...I can play some role in strategy, can play some role probably in marketing, possibly in sales, possibly coaching, maybe providing some capital, but I could not be the main operator in multiple businesses. And so there's this, we'll call it another dimension to focus, where you may be able to do something that appears unfocused, having your hand in a bunch of different businesses, but you can do it in a focused manner by deciding, what is the focused role that you will have in that business and then placing other partners and or key employees in the other areas that need focus that you don't want to or can't do well. And so I like to use a framework that comes from Michael Hyatt. He calls it the Freedom Compass. The Freedom Compass, basically takes everything you could possibly be doing for your business and he puts it into one of four quadrants. And the quadrant that he says makes you feel free and where you're the most valuable to the business is the quadrant in which there's an intersection of your greatest passion and your greatest proficiency. So you're really, really good at it. You're proficient, right? Proficient means really, really good. And it's one of your greatest passions. And if it's outside of one of those, you should either eliminate it, automate it, or delegate it. And so, that's a framework I use all the time. And the reality is when you're really focused on stuff that you're really good at and that you really love, you just find the energy to get it done. You don't have to search for the energy. You don't have to muster it up, right? And again, let's go back to family and faith really quick, because we're going through the five. Like if you feel alignment with what you're doing every day in any given business or businesses or even outside of business other areas in life that you're focusing on if you feel alignment with your faith your worldview of how things work in the world and what your purpose is you feel alignment with your family and the role that you have in your family and you feel like you're focused on areas that you are proficient at and really love man you're building the building blocks right of just like a great life and something that brings you energy every single day. So on the topic of energy, let's go next to fitness. Where does fitness fit into all of this and why is it so important for being a holistically healthy entrepreneur?
Chris (22:06)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean this one is weakened on a pack greatly as well too but the mental clarity that you know you receive every day from working out is unmatched. know it there's a there's a personality on Twitter I love he says he's gonna go see his therapist and it's like 225 deadlift you know what I mean he's just like I'm gonna go see my therapist right
And, you know, for me, I was, you know, I played, you know, played sports in college and I worked at multiple gyms in my 20s. And then life kind of happened and I got away from being in the gym. And so last December I committed to being in the gym again. And I just, found myself just amazed that, you know, I love this so much. Like, why, why did I stop? What, what, you know, what was it, you know, and
Jon Blair (22:44)
Hahaha
Chris (23:13)
And so just being back in the gym. And then also I went carnivore for a couple months. And that was life changing. It truly was in a sense of the mental clarity and energy and the ability to make decisions. And it is something that I don't know what the long-term effects of it are, but I plan to do it again. And I don't know for how long this time, but fitness.
it also is our nutrition and what we put in our body. again, we're not hunters and gatherers anymore. So, but you know, there's, you know, all these nutrients that our body needs that we used to receive, you know, and so, but it comes down to that. If we, if we want to have that balance where mentally we can be there in our faith and our family, you know, and our focus.
It kind of starts with our fitness. It's kind of, I don't know how we would map out this system, but it's something that's equally as important to everything else and the way that we approach each of the other areas of our lives.
Jon Blair (24:26)
Yeah man, it's crazy because I think my gut, this is just what my gut tells me if I'm wrong you can tell me but what when you said life happens it's like you have kids, you get married, you have kids and you're like my gosh my routine is all messed up because I have, you know for me I have three kids, you have two kids, you have a wife and multiple kids and you have to integrate your routines with their routines and usually their routines can be like in one way, or form, much less predictable than your own routines, right? And so like the first things to go are sleep, right? Especially like when you have an infant, like you throw sleep out the window, it just, you got to feed them every three hours, you got to attend their needs, keep them alive, right? And then like, if you're not even getting sleep, to me, I think about like fitness, like kind of like building blocks, if you're just not even getting enough sleep, yeah, you can go work out to offset the lack of sleep for a little bit, right? And it will work for a little bit.
Chris (24:56)
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Right.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jon Blair (25:22)
But eventually it loses its power and you've just got to get some sleep. That's foundation number one. And then there's the nutrition. Like you were just saying. And then there's some form of moving your body. We'll call it moving your body. Unfortunately, I played football and baseball and I injured my knee. I can't run anymore, which sucks. I love running. I love the pump from it. But I've also done a lot of reading and found that any sort of even just like medium intensity including brisk walking. If you do it regularly like at least five times a week the benefits to your heart and your body are actually massive. So it's actually not about how intense you go it's about doing something that you can just be consistent at right and and then on the nutrition side this is kind of a new journey that my family's been on my wife and I like it and it really kind of started with having kids is like starting to be more aware or become more aware of what is in all of this processed food that we're giving to our kids, right? And like you and I, I feel like we came from this generation, our parents were kind of like the first processed food generation and they like loved like my parents are big snackers and like, you know, like mass produced processed food kind of happened in their generation. And so it was very pervasive in our life growing up.
We didn't think anything of it But the man the thing that's kind of blows me away is just like the massive amounts of well the fact that everything is stripped of its fiber and Nutrients, right? So it's just like there's no nutrition and all of that stripped flour and and rice and all that kind of stuff But then the amount of salt and sugar that's in stuff is just like outrageous and I see it with my kids when they Have these snacks that are marketed to kids
Jon Blair (27:19)
they go crazy because of the sugar content in them and the fits that they throw when they can't get them. it's sort of, I read this book like, I don't know, several months back, actually written by a nurse and nutritionist who's also a Christian and her, she took it from the Christian perspective, which is like, our bodies weren't made to, you know, process this highly processed food that is like, devoid of all of its actual like natural nutrition. And as soon as we started eating more, you know, we're, we're, we're not 100% right? Like perfect at it, I'd say 70 to 80%. But just that 70 to 80 % has made all the difference in the world of like, how, how good we feel our brain's ability to process information and mental clarity and energy. And we need all those things to make it through the sport of business and life because
Chris (27:59)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Jon Blair (28:16)
The sport of business and life and staying on course is exhausting. And so you cannot, I'm realizing more and more as I get older, especially as you get older, you've got to nail sleep, you've got to nail nutrition, and you've got to nail some form of moving your body. And when you do those things, everything is easier. It's crazy, you know?
Chris (28:31)
Exactly.
Right. It is. It is. It's wild. so sleep again. I used to be someone who would work till, you know, one, two in the morning, get four hours of sleep and just go. I can't do that anymore. I need eight hours. And I protect that. Like I love going to bed at 10 o'clock now. It's the weirdest thing. It's like, but it's like, yeah, you perform better with it.
Jon Blair (28:55)
Yeah, get in that sleep.
So, know, one thing that I'm realizing as we're talking through this game, we've gone through faith, family, focus, fitness. You know, back, whenever there's a big tech boom, there's always like a bunch of like, you know, productivity hackers that put out these crazy things about like, like how to, how to hack, you know, scaling your startup by sleeping one hour a night, like how to sleep hack, how to nutrition hack, and all of those fads they eventually, like eventually you burn out, right? What we're going through here today with the five F's, it's not just living a life, a business and personal life that's holistically healthy and that's on purpose. It's about living a life in business and in personal life that withstands the test of time. That keeps, so that you can go, you can execute for the long haul, right? Because I'm realizing success in life and business comes through the long game. Making it through the long game. It's not about timing your business perfectly or timing your investment perfectly. It's about staying in business or staying in the stock market for the most time, for more time than everybody else. And how do you do that? You stay on purpose with your faith, with your family, with your focus and your fitness. The fifth F we're talking about now, finances.
Where does finances fit into all this, Chris?
Chris (30:29)
Yeah, you know finances is different for everyone's kind of life goals Kind of like what we talked about, you know, what what do you value and we all have different reasons for you know, being in business or wanting to make money. And you know, it's interesting because right now, there's a huge influx of like, money Twitter, as we like to call it or money Instagrams, you know, and, and, you know, these guys have learned to make a lot of money and then where are they putting it? And we see the lambos and the jewelry and everything else. so just knowing that life is beyond, you know.
beyond material things, right? And so how do you want to set your, you know, your family up long-term and, and, you know, what cash do you need to focus on certain investments or certain businesses that you want to grow? Because businesses, especially businesses that are in growth require almost all your capital, right? And
So what do you have that's kind of cash flowing? Because I've been back up here, you know, I think if I were to go back, you know, a handful of years, you know, having a cash flowing business is really the most important thing that we can kind of do in the beginning of our career. And then if we want to go and start another business to solve another problem in the world, you know, understanding, that that cash flow is going to be needed for, you know, for you to live and for you to have savings or investments. And at this other businesses, we're going to require, you know, another set of capital that you could get through loans or financing or just self funding. so it's. I think it's it's one of the issues going back to what I was just saying with like money Twitter, it's like there needs to be more education in this space.
Jon Blair (32:43)
sure. Yeah, and one and I will say I'll take it one step further. Education that is down to earth and real and not that is clickbait headlines. I'm so sick and tired of the clickbait headlines. I think you you may have liked one of my LinkedIn posts from a couple weeks ago. I got I got an email from one of these like solopreneur gurus and the and the headline was like how I run an eight figure business four hours a week. And I'm like, I'm done with these headlines, okay? Because it's BS. And I guarantee you there's way more to the story, but that gets you to click, that gets you to buy his content, right? And that's why I've taken this position of like, no, really great entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs for their whole life. And so we're not racing to try to hit it big.
Chris (33:14)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
You
Right.
break.
Jon Blair (33:40)
and to time everything perfect, time the market, time the exit. We're trying to just build great businesses, right? That matter and like you're saying, have a financial model that's actually viable, right? And to stay in it for the long run because that's actually where wealth is built. Whatever form of wealth you're looking for. Whether you're talking about putting money in the stock market, you're talking about investing in real estate, you're talking about growing your own businesses. You will build if you make good decisions that have sound financial models to them, right? And you just withstand the test of time. You stay in it for the long run. You're gonna make, you're gonna build some amount of wealth. Are you gonna like leave opportunities on the table? Miss like selling at the top of a bubble? Of course. That's gonna happen. You can't time those things perfectly. And some people do get lucky. That happens. But...
Chris (34:08)
Right. Right. Right.
Jon Blair (34:37)
So much of this advice is based on these stories that are either clickbait and BS and they're sound bites that are pulled out of the truth and make it seem like something else or they are stories of people who are the exception and not the rule. The rule is build, make sound financially fundamental decisions and stay in the game longer than everyone else. That's the rule. The exception is I sold my tech company right before the dot com bubble burst. That's the exception. That is not the rule. Don't follow that business plan, right? And so I totally agree with you. It sucks because I'm actually, you can tell I'm fired up about this because it actually upsets me. It upsets me because people make money off of all these, off this quote financial education that is really kind of a get rich quick scheme disguised as not a get rich quick scheme, you know? and I think the other thing too that I want to say on the concept of finances is that you're gonna make mistakes we're all gonna make mistakes and it's okay like I guarantee you like the Rockefellers have tons of stories they could tell about all the mistakes they made Dave Ramsey's business was born out of a massive mistake where he had he basically was on the verge of bankruptcy right and so but
Chris (35:45)
Right.
Right.
Right. Right. Right.
Jon Blair (36:05)
But what we try to do as CFOs is help you make mistakes that don't kill your business. So you can still live to fight another day. Right, and go, made a mistake, but it didn't put me out of business. Here's what I learned, and I'm not gonna do that again. Right? And so, I mean, what are some of the most important lessons, besides, you've talked about this like cash flowing, like figure out how to get your business to cash flow, which is super important. Are there any other?
like stories from your eight businesses, right? That I mean, which, that's a lot of whether you feel like you made mistakes or they were quote failures or not, you just, learned a ton. What else did you, have you learned about finances that you're going to take into the next business that you started that you're gonna take into the, the fewer number of businesses that you're gonna double down on?
Chris (36:54)
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, to not trust your accountant blindly. This might be the number one mistake I think a lot of entrepreneurs make is, you know, we think our accountants are taking, dotting the I's and crossing the T's and it's not always the case. And so you need to be on top of your numbers every week, you know, every month. And that's a mistake that, you know, since I was busy focusing on everything else.
that has been expensive mistake in my life. think another, you know, is to not is to this is a hard one, because it's like, we want to solve a problem, the definition of business is solve a problem. And we are emotionally passionate to do so. And so a lot of our decisions are emotionally and so like, but there's a lot of times in your business when you're like, hey, payroll cannot be at this number, but we're emotionally attached to certain employees, individuals. And so we make a lot of emotional decisions and we need to make those decisions faster. And what I've learned that it's better for the employee long term and it's better for your business short term. we don't have, I didn't have the experience to know that, but I can say that will never happen again. so...
Jon Blair (38:00)
Totally.
totally.
Chris (38:25)
And then I think as a kind of, it's just a third takeaway is.
when you have something that cash flows.
to always make sure that you're always keeping that pipeline going. So again, there's multiple different types of businesses, but let's say for our audience, say it's an agency or consulting or coaching or services, keep that top of funnel going. Make sure that you're keeping the leads going and that you're not distracted by another endeavor and all of a sudden,
you haven't talked to anyone about your services in the last six months. And all of sudden, you're like, hey, what happened here, right? So that's kind of where that focus comes in is like, hey, making sure that things that are cast flowing that we are focused on them. And that whatever, even if it gets even if it means that, hey, I gotta get up a five o'clock every morning to do this, make time, make time to, to put your eyes, you know, on your accounting, on your numbers.
and on your cells. I guess I have to sum it up.
Jon Blair (39:34)
Totally. No, no, mean, you know this, and I actually talk about this a lot in my content. The number one issue we come across when we talk to potential brands that want to potentially work with us, the number one issue is that they had some CPA that knows nothing about e-commerce looking at their books or doing their books. so actually what that...
Chris (39:47)
Mm.
I know it's so hard.
Jon Blair (39:59)
meant was books that were being done in a way that were just optimized for tax returns, right? But not optimized for the owners and managers actually understanding how the business is performing and what decisions they might have to make based on that. And we just see it again and again and again and again and again. And you know, I say this a lot, you don't have to become, you don't have to go get an accounting degree, but you do need to know enough.
Chris (40:03)
Right.
Right.
Jon Blair (40:25)
that you know what good looks like and you know what bad looks like. And I'll even go as far as to say that if you're a founder, you have to know enough about marketing and sales and operations and accounting and finance, even if only one or two of those things are your focus, right? Like your personal focus. You have to know enough to know what good looks like and what bad looks like because you're still ultimately responsible for whoever you're delegating that stuff to or outsourcing that stuff to. And so, that is a great challenge, but that is why entrepreneurs who can crush that make the big bucks, because it's hard. But it's totally possible, right? It's totally possible. And then the other thing that you mentioned was, you know, you can't ever stop prospecting. Whatever business you're in. Doesn't matter if you're in an e-com brand. I a lot of e-com brands who like, we just want to cut ad spend. I'm like, well, what other prospecting are you going to do then?
Chris (41:12)
Right.
Jon Blair (41:20)
Like, because at some point that's gonna come back to bite you, like, you can never stop prospecting and there's a, there's a, I think a lot of people don't realize, no matter what business you're in, there's actually a longer tail than you think in terms of like first someone, first becoming aware of you and then finally buying. There are some people who become aware, they're in the market and they're like bam, perfect, this checks all the boxes and they buy. But so many people become aware and then, they're a part of the long tail, many months later, and they finally buy. And so if you think about, I mean, if you really think about the analogy of like a funnel, if you stop dropping people into the top of it, eventually there's no one coming out the bottom, right? And so it just doesn't matter what business you're in, that system has to always be tended to. Now, can you delegate that to someone else, to other people?
Chris (41:50)
Right.
Right. Right.
Jon Blair (42:14)
Yeah, you can. It doesn't always have to be used as the founder, but if no one is working on it, it will eventually dry up. It may take a long time. I actually think that's where the trap is, is that it can take months. Sometimes it could take years for the funnel to dry up, but it does eventually if you are not actively putting new prospects into it. So I think that's fantastic advice. So I think the last thing that I want to chat about here is boundaries between work and personal life. Do you have any sort of, I don't wanna say hacks, but like do you have any guiding principles that you use when it comes to setting boundaries between your businesses and then your personal life?
Chris (42:54)
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, you know, I think one of things that I take a lot of pride in is, even though I am a senior entrepreneur, it is my nine to five. So every morning I wake up my children, my wife and I make them breakfast and we make them lunch. We go outside and wave to them as they drive off to school. And you know, I have family, I have a little bit of one on one time, you know, with my wife and you know, and then I get ready and I come to work.
And when I'm here, and you know, might be five or six, you know, depending on the day. But while I'm here, you know, I'm solving problems. And then I go pick up my son from football practice. We go home, we make dinner as a family. We have dinner as a family around the table. And we spend time. So last night, my daughter and wife, they were painting each other's nails watching a TV show.
And actually what I did with my son last night is I really introduced the five F's concept to him. And we I actually bought him a full focus planner and we actually started filling that out. Awesome. That's awesome. And so we started doing that. And then, you know, we say, you know, good night to them. And so again, you know, those boundaries are in a sense of like
Jon Blair (44:08)
I love it. My full book is over here. I live and die by it. My wife has one as well.
Chris (44:25)
that faith and family and fitness, they're all the main focus before kind of business starts and ends. And so I would say that's the main thing that we try to focus on as a family.
Jon Blair (44:42)
Yeah, I love that. have a similar kind of similar kind of boundaries. mean, and actually Michael Hyatt, know I keep he's the one who invented the full focus planner, but he's a he's a big like the content, the books he's written his podcasts are big reasons or the driving force behind a lot of my guiding principles when it comes to the balance between work and family. But he always says like, you have to set a start time and you have to set an end time to your day. Because as an entrepreneur, no one's gonna set it for you. You have to set it for yourself, right? And so I actually have, no, no, yeah, exactly. I still think about business. Let me say something that might be freeing to people that are listening. I can't turn off being an entrepreneur, and I don't. But I can be present with my family at 5.30 p.m. every day, even if I'm still thinking about work.
Chris (45:17)
No, and our brain doesn't turn off.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jon Blair (45:40)
part of being an entrepreneur that doesn't ever turn off and that's okay. It's something I wrote about on LinkedIn recently. I've been in the season of writing on LinkedIn about stuff about giving grace to entrepreneurs. I think we're all so hard on ourselves. I know we are. We're all so freaking hard on ourselves and there's no one who's gonna, people rarely tell us we're doing a good job because we don't have a boss. We're our own boss and we're actually the hardest boss that we could ever have. And no one's gonna tell us to stop, right? No one's gonna tell us to stop. so I actually have my start time and end time in my calendar, and I bookend my days with meals with my family as well. I have a three-year-old and a two-year-old boy while my wife is taking my daughter, who's five, to elementary school. I make them breakfast every day.
Chris (46:09)
All right.
Yeah.
Jon Blair (46:32)
I put away the dishes for my wife. I do some things around the house. I clean up the house so that it's not absolute chaos when she gets back, because she does enough of that all day long, taking care of our family. And then I start my work day, and at 5:30 we have dinner every day, and that's when my work day is done. Every once in a while, and what I mean every once in a while, mean like a few times a month, do I have to log in at night? Yeah, I do, because I didn't get something done. But once the kids are down for bed, they've been bathed and they've been put down,
Chris (46:41)
Right. Right. Yeah. Right.
Jon Blair (47:00)
Every once a while do have to get a thing or two done on the weekend? Yeah So every once a while do I say hey? I'm gonna be late for dinner today because there's this thing that got scheduled and I couldn't move it Yes, but those are very clearly the exceptions not the rules and because I've placed those boundaries. There's friction There's friction to scheduling them and because they're in my calendar Whenever I like look at possibly scheduling something over them. I go. I'm scheduling over my morning time with my boys having breakfast or over dinner with my family. And so it's just there's, so if there's anything from all this, it's like set boundaries and be okay with it not being perfect. know, Michael Hyatt always says, if he's calls it mapping out your ideal week, and if your ideal week is 70% on point, that's the goal, 70 to 80%. It's not 100% perfection, right? But if you are 70 to 80%, in alignment with what you've intentionally laid out as your ideal week, which includes boundaries at the beginning and end of your day for your personal life, you will be living a life of far greater success, achievement, and intentionality than most people out there. So in closing here, I would like to close with a little fun little personal question. What's a little known fact about Chris Lang that you think people might find shocking or surprising?
Chris (48:27)
I know I mentioned this to you before, but that I learned to read, write, speak Cherokee as a child. So I was raised Cherokee in Oklahoma, and it's really what inspired me about the story. What was this nation trying to preserve its history, its stories, its language? And so I think that base is, yeah, I think that base is...
Jon Blair (48:50)
That's so cool.
Chris (48:53)
has given me a lot of perspective and I'm super grateful for that opportunity.
Jon Blair (48:58)
Can you still read and write, Cherokee?
Chris (49:01)
So I can't write or read. It's something like, mean, you know, if I were to go back, would say, Osiyo dtohitsu? which means hi, how are you? And then if they asked me how I was, I'd probably say, agiyosi which means I'm hungry. So I know how to get around and get fed. That's about it. know, so no, but it is something, it's a very complicated. I think it's a, you know how there's different levels and languages?
Jon Blair (49:10)
Yeah.
Yeah, I love it. love it. Yeah. No, that's all good, man. That's cool, though.
Mm-hmm.
Chris (49:31)
to learn, I think level five, I think it's like a level five as far as the how hard it is. And so it's not native, know, like, I definitely know more Spanish now than I know Cherokee.
Jon Blair (49:43)
For sure. That's cool, man. I love that. So before we land the plane here, where can people find out more about you and about Move FWD?
Chris (49:49)
Mm.
Yeah, movefwd.co is our website and @ChrisLang social across platforms is where you can find me.
Jon Blair (50:02)
Definitely check out Chris's content. I read it every single day. It's really, really awesome stuff. And definitely check out Move FWD. mean, look, I don't think there's an entrepreneur out there that isn't looking for holistic health and as Michael Hyatt calls it, the double win, which is winning at work and succeeding at life. And so if you're looking for someone to come alongside you and help you in that journey, check out Move FWD and see what they can do for you.
Chris (50:06)
Amen.
Mm-hmm.
Jon Blair (50:30)
And you know, don't forget, if you're looking for more helpful tips on scaling a profit-focused DTC brand, which is my area of expertise, consider giving me a follow, Jon Blair, on LinkedIn. And if you're interested in learning more about how Free2Grow's DTC accountants and fractional CFOs can help you increase profit and cash flow as you scale, check us out at Free2GrowCFO.com. And until next time, scale on. Thanks for joining, Chris.
Chris (50:56)
Thank you.
