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EP651: Elliot Kallen - Driven
78 Plays5 days ago
"Success comes partially by hanging in there long enough and learning and growing from your mistakes."
Motivation in business isn’t just about feeling inspired; it’s about having a driving force that keeps you swinging the bat, even when the nose gets bloody. This episode unpacks the relentless spirit behind successful entrepreneurship—highlighting the lessons learned through failures, the importance of understanding cash flow, and the necessity of adjusting plans daily.
Our guest shares lessons from his journey through industrial packaging, environmental cleanup, and financial services. He emphasizes the importance of cash flow, strategic mentorship, and planning for the next three to five years. Success, he reminds us, is a long-term game that rewards resilience.
Elliot Kallen is a serial entrepreneur, best-selling author of Driven, and the founder of Prosperity Financial Group. With 40 years of experience across industries, he helps business owners navigate growth, financial planning, and exit strategies. Passionate about giving back, he also supports teens through his foundation.
Expert action steps:
1. Surround yourself with smart people: “Surround yourself with smart people that you can ask and get good advice from.”
2. Learn and research from others’ mistakes: “Learn and research so you can grow from your own mistakes. What do successful people in your field do?”
3. Plan for the next three to five years: “Plan for the next three to five years and adjust that plan every day.”
Learn more and connect:
Books:
- Driven by Elliot Kallen (Amazon bestseller)
- The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump
Email: elliot@prosperityfinancialgroup.com
Website: www.prosperityfinancialgroup.com
Phone: 925-314-8503
Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.
Recommended
Transcript
Phases of Entrepreneurship
00:00:03
Speaker
Entrepreneurship is a path. They could be multiple paths. I've had five paths, but they talk about the phases of it with a startup and the cash flows. I'm working seven days a week. I'm cleaning out the garbage cans, putting widgets together. And then the second phase, is I'm starting to make some money and like I got to pay for college and I might even have the money to pay for college. And the third phase is what are you going to do now? Are we going to sell the business? Are we going to close the business? or Are we going to give it to our children, which is usually a bad idea? What are we going to do with that? And how does this work?
Podcast Introduction
00:00:36
Speaker
Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nikki Ballou. Join the revolution. There's never been a better time in history to speak your truth, find your freedom, and make your fortune. Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders and learn the secrets of how they built a six to seven figure practice. This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.
00:01:03
Speaker
Welcome to another exciting episode of the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. I'm your host, Nikki
Guest Introduction: Elliot Callan
00:01:09
Speaker
Ballou. And boy, do we have an exciting guest lined up for you today. Today's guest is a serial entrepreneur. He's a bestselling author of a book called Driven. This man is a true thought leader when it comes to growing, scaling, selling and exiting companies. I am speaking, of course, of none other than the one.
00:01:34
Speaker
Naomi, the only legendary Elliot Callan. Welcome to the show, Elliot. Great to be here, Nicky. Thank you. Excellent. So Elliot, tell us your
Elliot's Entrepreneurial Journey
00:01:43
Speaker
backstory. How'd you get to be the great Elliot Callan? You know, that's ah that's a great question. I come from my dad was an entrepreneur, small business owner. And I learned lessons that if you end up in your business, it is always best to be in your own business. Of course, that means that you're going to have a rockier road than some other people are going to have.
00:02:03
Speaker
So since 1980, since I left the accounting world in 1982, I've been starting and selling and and buying and doing all the things that entrepreneurs do. And now I've started business three, four, five, and I'm in a process of trying to decide how to eventually unload my plate on with those as well. So it's the road of entrepreneurship, well-traveled and enjoyable.
00:02:25
Speaker
That's amazing, man. So tell me about the first business you were in. When did you start it?
First Business: Industrial Packaging
00:02:30
Speaker
What did you learn along the journey? And how did you exit? So that's a story from what they call of being too young and too naive to even ask the right questions, which a lot of entrepreneurs suffer from, um where we think we know it all, especially when you're young. I was i was with with a big aid accounting firm and that was just a bad fit for me. You could tell from my personality. It's kind of an upbeat people-based business, people-based personality. It doesn't really work in a world of accounting and certainly big accounting firms. And I left them and I went into the,
00:03:04
Speaker
I started the company in industrial packaging and so industrial packaging are things like plastics and tapes and markers and inks and solvents and and things like that even cleaning chemicals go into that world and was in the New Jersey New York market grew that business from basically zero to five million dollars in sales 30 employees I did that over a five-year period.
00:03:26
Speaker
And my lesson there, Nikki, was we were growing so fast, almost a clip of 30% a year, that I was constantly running out of money. And I could not understand as an entrepreneur how I could have profits and growth and still run out of cash on a regular basis. The term cash burn that we talk about today, would big companies do that? That wasn't a term in the 1980s. You really didn't understand that. So I went to banks and I got money thrown at me because we were so profitable.
00:03:54
Speaker
And eventually I owed a half a million dollars to one of the banks in New Jersey. And we knew we needed another big infusion of cash in 1987. The market had just gone down a little bit. And the cost of that was so high that I just said, I don't feel good doing this anymore. And then I sold the assets to my employees, went the team of employees, and I kept the liabilities for myself and I paid them off over the next three years.
00:04:18
Speaker
OK, cool. All right. So you you learned about cash flow. That's pretty cool. So what was your second company all about?
Second Business: Environmental Cleanup
00:04:25
Speaker
Second company was an environmental cleanup company. We did those big air and water remediation things that you see in smokestacks and, you know, and even at the consumer level.
00:04:34
Speaker
We did that, and we hired independent contractors. So that's the opposite. Instead of going with all employees, we hired and independent contractors throughout the the United States. We had about 1,500 of them, installers and prices and salespeople and marketing and every gamut that you can think of. And we made a lot of money by by using the Superfund money of what happened in Niagara Falls and Love Canal. And you know at the end of the the Bush administration, the oldest Bush administration,
00:05:02
Speaker
It was just starting to go away. And the the the excitement for environmental cleanup was, believe it or not, was waning in the United States. wasn't it was It just wasn't being done as much. And I could see the writing on the wall. I had already been, for a while, thinking about, I want to get back into financial services because I have a background in math. I love math. I love finance.
00:05:25
Speaker
And so I'd already looked into that and began to look around on that. And then my wife got pregnant with twins and we kind of wagon trailed it out to California and started out here from scratch knowing no one. And very quickly went into a prosperity financial group by company that's 30 plus years old today. And here we are today. I've got two companies in that business that total over a billion dollars in assets and then a foundation to go with that.
00:05:49
Speaker
that' that's making a huge impact on the teen world. So that's businesses three, four, and five. There will come a point, Nicky, that I sell those also or or or give those away or do something because it's time for me to start another business. im like um I got ants in my pants to start another entity. I love it, man. So tell me about Prosperity Financial Group.
Prosperity Financial Group
00:06:10
Speaker
What's it all about? What made you decide to start this? You know, and all that good stuff.
00:06:15
Speaker
So Prosperity Financial Group, we started because we saw a ni a niche in a marketplace, a need in a marketplace, and that was business owners need great financial advice, and they need help dealing with their the phases of their business career, the startup phase. How does that work? I've stored it up and and and it gotten blood on my nose. I've been in the middle of it. I know what it is when you start getting mature. I had not experienced being in my 60s.
00:06:40
Speaker
and figuring out my exit strategy, that I had to learn because so I was only in my 30s and 40s doing this. And so now I know a lot about that, but we wanted to bring to the business owner marketplace and a high net worth affluent marketplace really great advice that was not product driven. It wasn't going to be an annuity or a life insurance policy or a mutual fund. It was going to be holistic and solving problems. And that was our goal. And that's what we've done now.
00:07:07
Speaker
So what does that mean, holistic and solving problems and not product driven? What does that mean? Well, they're money based problems. They're all related in the key to money. What do I do with my money? How do I make enough money? How do I keep enough money? How do I retire with enough money? How do I leave enough money as a legacy? How do I not go through my money because of illness?
00:07:25
Speaker
and do i not you know kind of screw my kids and my family because I died too young and I didn't plan very well for it. It's related to money because at the end of the day, people ask me the same question, how's my money? How am I doing? Because they're worried about money. We live in a we live in a world where everything is becoming has become so expensive.
00:07:46
Speaker
You know my mother used to have this phrase she heard that if you were 25 years old and you put $2,000 into an IRA starting at 25 for the next 40 years and it grew at 8% you have a million dollars and you used to say all you will ever need in your life is one million dollars and she was wrong. Yes. One million dollars in today's world doesn't get you very far. Not at all.
00:08:12
Speaker
So we need more money than that. We know we probably need 3 million. If you want to have a really good retirement, anything above that, you're going to turn into a great retirement, assuming you can keep your health and your family together. Right on. So you're saying 3 million plus equals a good retirement. I think so. and And I'm in California. And in California, where things are more expensive than most of the country, except maybe New York or Chicago, it's 3 million.
00:08:40
Speaker
So I like it. okay and I just like client called me Nicky today and said they retired to Arizona. Older couple they've got maybe four or five hundred thousand dollars and she called me up and she was so upset because she said I we didn't realize how expensive retirement would be even though we sold our home in California and moved to you know a retirement community ah basically a double-wide trailer park community in Arizona.
00:09:05
Speaker
And she said, we have all this credit card debt. How do we handle this now? That's what you don't want to know. No, that's crazy. It's super, super crazy. OK, so tell me about your book. What made you write the book? Walk me through the book.
Book: Driven and Key Lessons
00:09:20
Speaker
So the book is called Driven by Elliot Callan. There are lots of words, books that start with the word driven, so you got to put my name to it. And it's an Amazon bestseller. Thank you for asking, Nicky.
00:09:30
Speaker
It is about the the concept that leadership is a path and so and entrepreneurship is a path. It could be multiple paths. I've had five paths. They don't have to be just one path your entire life. But they talk about the phases of it with a startup and the cash flows.
00:09:46
Speaker
And I'm working seven days a week. I'm cleaning out the garbage cans. I'm working putting widgets together. And then the second phase, is I'm starting to make some money. And like I got to pay for college. And I might even have the money to pay for college. And the third phase is, what are you going to do now? You're 60, 65, 70. Are we going to sell the business? Are we going to close the business? Are we going to give it to our children, which is usually a bad idea? What are we going to do with that? And how does this work?
00:10:12
Speaker
And then it talks about how to give back. I'm a big fan of giving back. I have a foundation, a charity. I love people that give back. You don't have to give back. Some people, their charity is their children. I get it. I understand that. For me, it's both my children, and it's ah leaving a mark on a world where the world is better off after I'm gone than without me. And that's what that's about. But it's also the path. I didn't have, Nikki, a straight path.
00:10:38
Speaker
I didn't have this amazing line that just went vertical up that says, wow, look at you with success. I got bloody, lots of bloody noses along the way, lots of life lessons, lots lots of what I call the rocky lessons, which it's not how many times you get knocked down, it's how many times you get back up.
00:10:56
Speaker
I had those lessons and we keep hearing about Mark Zuckerberg is you know a billionaire before age 30 and all these other Silicon Valley people are billionaires overnight and I wanted to write a book that gives permission for entrepreneurs to both have challenges and fail and feel good about that because they're still swinging the bat.
00:11:18
Speaker
They're still making plays on the on the field. And i that was my message that I wanted to send out is don't stop swinging the bat. Don't stop making the plays of whatever you're doing. Because success comes partially by hanging in there long enough and learning and growing from your mistakes. But it doesn't always come in the first three years or five years. And sometimes an overnight success is somebody that takes 20 years.
00:11:43
Speaker
Yeah. Amen. Amen. um no There's a lot of good things you've said. It's made me think about my own situation. ah And I thank you for making me think. That is an important part of hosting the show is to learn from my guests. So um people pick up this book on Amazon. Where do you want to send them to?
00:12:06
Speaker
Okay, they can reach me. It's on Amazon. If they give give me an email, pop me an email at l-e-l-l-i-o-t at prosperityfinancialgroup.com. I'll send them a signed copy for free. They don't even have to buy it. We're so interested in getting that out the door. We'll just ship it to them with you know regular mail. They're not even asking for postage because we really I think the message is so strong. I don't need the money. I don't need people to pay for postage. I'm not looking for that. We just want to get this book out, get the message out. If they've got questions, a million questions, how to build a charity, what's my road like? What do you recommend? Everything's on the website or 925-314-8503. We'd love to get positive messages out to entrepreneurs that you can grow and you can fail and you can succeed and they're all related to each other.
00:12:54
Speaker
But giving up should not be one of your choices. Yeah, absolutely. I like it. So we end off each episode by asking you as our guest expert, what are your top three expert action steps? These are your top three best pieces of advice to help my listener grow their business, improve their life, live life as the best version of themselves.
00:13:20
Speaker
What say you? Okay, then those are different topics of living your life and having business success, but I would surround myself with smart people that I can ask good and get good advice from.
00:13:33
Speaker
So if I need to get better in shape, get somebody who's good at exercise. If I'm overweight, I need to get my heart better. Get somebody who's better in health. if you Business experts, not just your CPA, but so most CPAs, are
Top Tips for Business Success
00:13:46
Speaker
they give crappy advice because they react. Get people that can give you good advice. And that's number one. So that was not new. That surround yourself with a brain trust is the first thing you should be doing. Second thing you should be doing is learning and researching so you can grow from your own mistakes.
00:14:03
Speaker
What do successful people in your field do? What have they done in something that's an allied field? So you can learn from it, so you don't have to make the same mistake. And a third one is plan for the next three to five years. Plan, actually do the planning for it.
00:14:20
Speaker
and then adjust that plan every day because it's not a static plan where we have a mission statement and a goal and things like that and you open it up and you close it up and you look at it three years from now but you plan every day and you research it and how am I doing on track do I have to adjust my plan because market forces sometimes make you adjust.
00:14:40
Speaker
So just because you thought of this three years ago, when there was a different president and a different economy, and now things have changed, doesn't mean your plan is still static. Things change, change with it and be one step ahead of the curve. And that's because you're asking people for help.
00:14:59
Speaker
Those are really good expert action steps. And, you know, you brought up the fact that there's a different president today. And i I'm going to extend the episode by a few minutes because I'd really like to get your comments and your thoughts on how entrepreneurs can position themselves for success ah under the current Trump administration.
00:15:25
Speaker
Well, that's a great question. So I'll put on my thinking hat, fortune telling glasses here. Let's remember, first of all, that with with Donald Trump, he's a volatile president. The tariffs are a good example of that. And therefore the stock market and a lot of other business are going to experience some of that volatility.
00:15:43
Speaker
We'll forget whether you love his politics or hate it. That really is irrelevant here. But you've got to be accepting of his of his volatility because we're going to have lots of market swings and lots of swings and emotions and people very elated and people very upset that you know and you care about in all fields. So you've got to accept that. But if I want to be the president, if I want to build a business, I want to understand that AI is going to run you over or you go to embrace it and do something with it.
00:16:10
Speaker
It's gonna be there. New technologies are gonna run you over and put you out of business or you're gonna embrace them and figure out how to do with that to deal with that and be in front of it. Most entrepreneurs aren't creating the next big Nvidia chip. They're much smaller than that.
00:16:25
Speaker
Right? So what is going to be here in a year or two? What's this going to look like in three years from now in the market? And how can I in my business take advantage of something three years from now that nobody else is probably doing? What can I see that they don't see? So you got to put your vision goggles on to see where we're going. Most of us look at where we've been.
00:16:48
Speaker
And that's the that's the biggest difference of entrepreneur success. We are gonna all get run over in some form by AI, artificial intelligence, in some form. So we're either gonna brace it and do something better with it, or we get replaced by it. But it's not the answer. It's a tool. Like any other tool in a toolbox, artificial intelligence is a tool. Technology is a tool. Use it to our advantage and don't let it hurt us.
00:17:15
Speaker
Okay, um so what you're saying is that the Trump administration is going to be engendering some level of volatility in the marketplace.
Impact of Politics and AI on Business
00:17:28
Speaker
And what you're saying is that disruptive technologies like AI are also going to engender an inflection point. And that inflection point is either embrace these technologies or get run over by them, because one way or another, they're here to stay.
00:17:45
Speaker
And they're here to stay in a way that is going to have a profound impact on you, whether you like it or dislike it, doesn't really matter. Am I getting you properly? You are getting that right. But if you're a manufacturer, you are having product made in China. I'm going to add one more point to that.
00:18:01
Speaker
I would begin to look for alternative locations besides China. I know China might be the lowest-cost provider, but at some point, we are going to uncouple trade to a degree with China. And if you're not prepared for that, move your product to the Philippines, move it to Vietnam.
00:18:18
Speaker
Whatever you think is the right move for you, South America, but you need to uncouple with China. You want to sell to China. It's got a billion plus people. You want to sell to India. A billion plus people in India. These are great things. India is a country that's going to invite you in to make your products and sell your products. China is going to make invite you in, but you're going to want to steal your technology while they're doing it.
00:18:39
Speaker
It's different attitude there. It's a different attitude. So be in front of the China mess that's coming. There is a China china deluge that's coming, whether it turns it a war or economic trade war like we have now, it's going to disrupt you as an entrepreneur and your business. I like what you're saying, um ah and I'm learning a lot from what you're saying. I wonder, you know, Trump strikes me as a deal maker.
00:19:07
Speaker
He's a quintessential New Yorker developer deal maker. This is a guy who's going for the deal. He's also you know a queen's New Yorker. So he's bold, he's brash. And his strategy for negotiating is to get really loud, get really almost um intensely in your face in a way that you go, what the hell is this guy doing? Is he crazy? Because what he's saying makes zero sense.
00:19:35
Speaker
but Once you get past that that initial brashness, it appears that there's a method to his madness that he's actually looking for a better deal than he currently has now. And he's looking for you to make some concessions. I mean, he just did that with Mexico. Mexico agreed to put 10,000 troops at their border ah and to shut down. um you know, illegal migration and shut down the the flow of drugs. And he's basically said, well, for a month, we won't put these tariffs on you, but in a month, if you haven't done a good job, the tariffs are coming back. That's what happened. And he's on, he's on, I'm from Canada and he's on the phone with ah Trudeau today, speaking at 3 Eastern.
00:20:15
Speaker
And I've got a feeling that they're going to come up with some sort of an agreement as well. And I think the Chinese are going to come and say, OK, we'll give you $200 billion dollars or whatever, make these tariffs go away. And I think that's Trump's style. And I've read his book, The Art of the Deal, back way before he ran for president. It just seems this guy,
00:20:38
Speaker
He's looking for an angle and looking for a way to get a better deal. And I wonder what your comments are on
Concerns about China
00:20:45
Speaker
that. Do you agree with that? Do you disagree with that? What are your thoughts? I agree with what you're saying about Mexico or South America or Europe, eventually Europe. They're going to be a little more obstinate with with us and certainly Canada, which I think they'll come to agreements. China is a different conversation. China wants world domination. They're going to be the largest army, the largest Navy.
00:21:06
Speaker
they're They're taking over the bulk of Africa right now. We're having conversations about Panama and Silk Road with the Panama Canal that they really control both sides of the water of the Panama Canal. They are our future enemy. They remind me a little bit about Japan in the late 1920s.
00:21:23
Speaker
They took all of our scrap metal, all of our waste, and and we didn't we were too dumb to realize that they were building bombs and bombers with these things, with our scrap. China's kind of doing that the same way with our money. And so we're not going to war with Panama or Canada or Mexico. But we could be going to war, and your children or grandchildren could be going to war somewhere down the road, and maybe a limited war.
00:21:47
Speaker
with China. yeah And so that's my concern with China. The volatility, if i if my business depends on a country that's very volatile and treats us as an unfriendly long-term, I wouldn't want to put my livelihood a bit on that.
00:22:02
Speaker
I agree with you about that. I do. I also think in the short to medium term that Chinese do not want um to have the spigots of money turned off from the United States. So I think they're going to come to some sort of deal to get these tariffs to go away.
00:22:20
Speaker
Um, but I do agree with you. I think American business, frankly, Western business needs to decouple from China. We need to buy less from China and we need to make partnerships with some of the countries you mentioned, like the Philippines, Vietnam, South American countries.
00:22:36
Speaker
100% agree with you. You cannot buy anything that isn't made in China nowadays. it's so far I want to use Windex. It comes from China. I want to buy a little broom. It comes from China. um i'm drinking I have a coffee cup on my desk. I'm sure it's Chinese coffee cup. I mean, everything is is made there. And it's not healthy for the United States to have a bee like that.
00:22:56
Speaker
it's It's definitely not. And I agree with you that that must happen. And I think Donald Trump sees that. And I think a big part of his ah foreign policy is aimed at um containing China, isolating it. I mean, I heard in the news that ah Marco Rubio met with the president of Panama, and they agreed that they were going to exit the the Belt and Road Initiative.
00:23:19
Speaker
and they were going to make sure the Chinese companies no longer had access to servicing the Panama Canal. So that was a big win for Donald Trump and for the United States, in my opinion. I also, I myself, look, I do my best to buy Canadian, American, ah European products as much as possible. I don't wanna buy from China if I can avoid it. Now it's not always avoidable, but that's the way I see it.
00:23:46
Speaker
I just I think China is going to in the short term in the next two years is going to try to make deals with Donald Trump. They're not going to they're not going to go to to a hot war in the next two years. ah Am I wrong? No, you're probably right. I don't think it happens in the next four years. I just think we're on we're on that potential road. Yeah. What to happen. And I don't want to if I don't have to contribute to that road. I don't want to.
00:24:13
Speaker
Well, you and I are on the same page on that.
Hobby Talk: Knife Collecting
00:24:15
Speaker
I wholeheartedly agree. So one of the things I purchase, and um'm by the way, I'm really glad our conversation is going in this direction, ah because this is a more kind of authentic, powerful conversation, I think more more valuable for my listener as well. So i I'm a knife collector in a book. I collect things. okay I collect knives. I collect books. I collect a whole bunch of things. right and um I go out of my way to buy product made in America or made in Canada. Some of the product I buy is made in China, and it's it's been difficult to avoid. But I've got you know over 100 knives in my collection, and the vast majority are made in the USA or made in Canada. It costs a fair bit more. If you buy a product made in China, my collection, if it was entirely made in China,
00:25:05
Speaker
would probably have cost me 50% or 60% less than it ended up costing me. But I'm i' happy to have paid the money, and I'm glad that it's you know not made in China, to tell you the truth. And I think it's a good thing. I think more American companies need to do what you're suggesting, which is to decouple themselves from the Chinese ah supply chain and to create an American Canadian supply chain. Honestly, I think America and Canada ah can do a lot more business together, especially if they start to direct some of their buying activities, you know, within the North American area rather than taking it outside to ah the Pacific. I mean, that that's what I think would make a lot of sense. i am agree with it
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. OK. Well, shoot, el yeah you and I, we see things eye to eye. I kind of like that. you' You're you're thinking I had a knife collection as well. Just thought to interrupt you there. But I want to tell you that we share that in common. So shut up for real.
00:26:03
Speaker
Yeah, I was up to about 90 knives, all different blades from, yep, gorgeous knives. The USA made knife designed by a Vietnamese refugee brother. I love it. Old people guy. it So it's it's very interesting. i had I had a beautiful knife collection and my house got broken into and they took about 80 of the 90 knives. No, that's awful. And so i they were and i they were made everywhere. ah they left me They left me a bare skinning knife, a scuba diving knife, and a handful of other knives, but mostly they took it
00:26:40
Speaker
So I never decided, okay, that just wasn't meant to be. But I do love knives and I stop in knife stores all the time. No, dude, listen, screw these bastards. Don't let them take away, take you away from your knife habit. Knives are really, really cool. You know, it's, it's one of those things that I believe makes a man feel like a man.
00:27:00
Speaker
having a knife, having a bunch of knives. Maybe you don't want to go back up to 90 knives, but go get yourself another five, 10 gorgeous knives and have them in your collection and and make sure you buy American offline. I can tell you about some good guys. I've had some really great knife makers on my podcast, like some of the some of the iconic American knife makers, you know, and I got to tell you, their knives are really, really tremendous. I bet they are. i be there i Yeah, sure. I'd love to learn more about that.
00:27:28
Speaker
Well, look, this knife is made by a company called Spartan Blades. They, um a couple years back, merged with um ah company called, I think, Cutco and KBAR, right? So Spartan Blades was founded by two Green Berets, and they this particular knife is a Ronin Shinto, and it was designed by two lamb, who's ah a former Green Beret himself, and he's also the character
00:28:02
Speaker
um on a Call of Duty, the Ronin character ah was based on him. So he's he's this badass you know Vietnamese American dude. And the the knife's super, super cool. Greg Medford is out of Arizona. He is a very politically incorrect knife maker and a total American patriot, former US Marine. Ernest Emerson, of Emerson Knives is the man who invented the fault the tactical folding knife for the United States Navy Seals.
00:28:31
Speaker
You gotta buy yourself an Emerson knife, man. I need to do that. I know that some of the best blades in the world come from either Germany or Japan. They seem to do a great job with blades of steel. We're doing a good job here in the United States, Canada these days as well. There's a fellow by the name of Chris Reeve. He's retired, but he invented the first knife steel that was made specifically for knives. You know what I mean? That was made just for knives, like like production. I mean, I'm not talking about like custom knife steel because the Japanese have been doing that for a long time. But this dude's knives are amazing. like um
00:29:15
Speaker
ah God, what was the name of the company that created that knife that that knife steel? I forget it'll come to me, but the the s35 vn steel I think was crucible crucible steel company those guys made those they are some really badass Badass knives. So yeah, I recommend you want to go earn Emerson knives. You want to go mentford knives Spartan blades ah Chris Reeve knives you know these these are some really great companies that are worth buying some knives. I love this idea. thank Well you're motivating me to go out and look at knives again. Yeah listen um if you ever come up to Canada I'll take you to a couple knife stores over here we'll get you a couple good knives. I am coming to Canada where are you? I'm in Toronto. Oh you're on the east side. We're just talking about taking a trip to
00:30:02
Speaker
Banff and then take the train over to Vancouver. Well, you should totally do that. Banff is gorgeous. I've spent time there. You should go to the sulfur springs in Banff. They're they're amazing. and In the winter, it's just these wonderful hot springs that sulfur smells a little rank. But I'll tell you, it's incredibly refreshing to do that. And to Vancouver is one of the glorious, gorgeous parts of the world. You're going to totally, totally enjoy it. elliot Thank you. I'll be there in August.
00:30:31
Speaker
Okay, tremendous. Elliot, really enjoyed having you on the show. Listener, Elliot Callan is a true thought leader. He's a serial entrepreneur. He's the author of the book, Driven. Go to Amazon or send him an email. We'll have both of those in the show notes. Get a copy of the book, read it, and spread the message to the rest of the world. Elliot, thanks for coming on the show. My pleasure. Thanks, Nicky.
00:30:55
Speaker
And that wraps up another exciting episode of the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. To find out more about today's guest, the one and only Elliot Callan, go to the show notes at thethoughtleaderrevolution.com or wherever you happen to listen to this episode, be it iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Audible, YouTube, Rumble, or what have you. Until next time, goodbye.
00:31:19
Speaker
This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.