Welcome back to the show, my fellow extraordinary Americans. 

Today’s guest is Kirk McLaren, the Financial Freedom guide. His mission is for business owners to gain financial freedom on their terms. He believes that when business owners do well, many people do well. 

He invented the Growth CFO and Financial Freedom system and is the founder and CEO of Foresight CFO, a true team of growth-minded financial experts who help organizations with their tactical and strategic finances as they develop habits of financial stability. He’s also a Georgetown University graduate studies lecturer and Forbes author. 

He wrote the Growth CFO Void, which achieved Amazon’s number-one bestseller in 2023. His love of building businesses started in high school when he built a lawn business that earned 1.2 million in annual revenue before he sold it. 

He has the skills of a CFO combined with 30 years of actual business building. He’s an extraordinary American, and I’m glad and honored to have him on this show. Kirk, are you there?

Hey, Cosmo. Thank you for the introduction. Very kind. I am here.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this podcast curve. I’m honored to have you on the show. So, Kirk, I know that you’re an entrepreneur and you’re into business. Can you tell me the audience a little bit more about yourself, your background, and how you got started?

Yeah, just by background, I grew up in a middle-class family, as if my dad were a salesperson. My mom was a teacher in Houston, TX, of all places. It was a good family upbringing. My dad was involved. He traveled a lot, but he was involved, and you know, mother and you know, both valued education. You know, of course, I finished high school.

In high school, the big thing was starting a lawn business. 

For most people in Texas, it’s hot and usually hot and humid. You know. I’m good at math with one customer at $20. Two customers are 40, and you will soon know 1500 customers. By the 3rd year, we had 75 employees, and we had some innovative things about getting clients for the piggyback drop system. We have clients. With no cost of acquisition and leverage, we had multiple crews off one truck. I didn’t know it back then, but that’s operational leverage. 

From my high school standpoint, it was just a lot of, you know, good experience.

Sold the business and went to college at Texas A&M, but that was not a good experience, right? I’m 1920 years old and, you know, kind of stuck in school, opening the books.

So, when the first Gulf War started, I dropped out of school. And I joined the US Army as a behavioral scientist. And fortunately, you know, I never saw any action. Right. But back then, the war was over – Quick, thank God, because I have no romantic idea about wars. But it gave me a chance to serve as a behavioral scientist, which, you know, really started to understand people even more than I did growing up. And that’s, you know, to the way we work now as gross CFO. That’s formative: listening, asking questions, finding where people want to go. Yeah, bring it in and out of the army. I went to grad school at Hopkins. 

They. They said I had to learn a foreign language of all things, right, and it was my language aptitude. I would not learn Spanish while living in Washington, DC, and it would not be that easy. 

And so I finished the academic part early, and then I went to live in Venezuela for a whole year, and it’s pretty awesome. Because you can hear this thing if you talk about freedom. I was free when I went. When I entered the army and was free in Venezuela, I returned only a backpack and a school-age backpack. And I lived for a whole year, and you can imagine my parents are, you know, teachers and salespeople. My brother is a is a physician. 

They play it safe. And they had this other kid over here, me, who dropped out of school, joined the army, started the business, and went to Venezuela with no money, just a backpack. But it worked out. I met. I met Naija neatly, and she became my wife. 

And we came back here. And two sons later. And at this point, 28 years later, from a business standpoint. Like household income, I learned from a business-building standpoint. I learned how to gain financial freedom. In that part of the journey, the part I’m working on now. Well, what about, you know, what about life and that multi-generational legacy where I can impact multiple generations? I don’t care about consumption but about development and spiritual, mental, and physical vocation. I do care about that piece. 

So, all that to say. I mean, with three decades of business-building experience, Foresight CFO is my do-it-with-your-company; my grow CFOs work side by side with companies to figure out where they are and where they want to go.

No, there are so many questions to ask over here. 

One of the questions I wanted to ask her is, what was your strategic vision over the past three decades that got you from going on a backpacking trip to Venezuela to, like now, founding Foresight CFO and just doing what you’re doing, like helping people attain financial freedom? Because I feel like that’s a very interesting understanding, right? What evolution led to where you are now?

Yeah. Well, let’s talk about it from back then. 

Back then, I did not have a strategic vision. You know, back then, I was just doing it. I see a lot of a lot of people, and a lot of young people are more intentional than I was for me. I had a pretty low bar. If you and I had a good idea, I would do it. And with some level of confidence that we’ll figure it out. You know, we know what and why I am jumping. You know it. 

So I just followed the bread. Yeah, I’m more inspired by the vision. Is there something you want to do that requires creativity? We do it.

Over time, things have come together. We’re now, you know, and I want to end. I want to start a ripple effect through Growth CFO and Life. I want to start a ripple effect that plays out. Over the next 500 years, I don’t know if you know Luke up Basilio. He’s a father of accounting. 

But 500 years ago, he started something that allows people to keep track of their money. And then here we are now. Can you imagine how much better life has been for people and how all these generations could keep track of their money?

 So, I want to do something similar, but how do we elevate what’s being done on the gross CFO side? We are where people can build a business with more confidence. You know, you know, not safe, but safer. And even more importantly, you know what? No one is just building a business to build a business. 

There is nothing else to do this: build a business. More importantly, what does that person want in their life? Like how the freedom of time, purpose, and money is at that point. It is what it took. I didn’t start with the vision of life, but I. But I do now. When a person has clarity about their life, it makes a lot of sense. Well, how do we build the business? What’s their right role in the business versus all the hats they could be stuck wearing? 

So I didn’t start with a with, you know, eight years old. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with nothing like that. It was more like, huh, that sounds good. Oh. I wanted to serve. Yeah, I’m not. I’m not happy in college. The idea of serving in the army appealed to me. And did it then, over time, all those things come together into what we’re talking about now.

So, Kirk, it’s not easy to start a business, right? You just don’t wake up one day like, “All right, we’ll start a business at 18—financial freedom. 

So, a lot of people in the audience probably want to know. What are the steps that you have to take from scratch? Let’s say you’re just doing a job. And you’re like, OK, I want to start a business. I want to attain time and financial freedom. And how do I go about doing it? I’m stuck in the job, paying these bills right now. What would be your perspective on that?

Yeah. So, for that person doing a job, it could be an entry-level or a professional job, I’m pretty sure. That there are times throughout the week. Where do they say something that somebody should do it right? There’s something they’re doing that’s not being done. Well, that’s not effective. And I’m pretty sure that. They see things that can be done better and things that are not being done. I will suggest that the folks out there pay attention to those moments. What would I say? Or something else says somebody should? Maybe that’s the right business for them. Right. 

And so I would identify those moments that they could do better. Then what they currently see being done, and they’re, you know, in their real life, based on what they have first-hand knowledge of.

Yeah, like Kirk. You talked about going into, like, going to the Gulf War and undertaking, like, my parents were actually in Kuwait when that happened, and they were Indian immigrants. They then moved back to India for three years and returned to Kuwait—but the major. 

However, the major thing I noticed in this country was that many immigrants are stuck by money, are not free financially, and are determined by where they go, how they live, and everything else. 

Oh, they’re trying to attain the field, but they don’t have the motivation. Or they’re too afraid to take the risk because a lot of risk happens in business.

 So, for somebody that wants to do what you have done right, like where you started a business and everything, but they are like a job, they’re too afraid of the financial risk. What would you say to such a person?

Yeah, just to be clear, not just immigrants and parents. My, my parents. Right. That is the fact that I am going to start a business. It’s it gives them; it gives them anxiety. Beyond.

You make it sound so easy, as you said. It sounded natural—like floating free—but obviously, we know there’s a lot of hard work and risk. It wasn’t.

Yeah. I think everybody has their own is going to have their approach, and we’ll break it down in a moment. It was for me; I always had confidence that I could figure it out. I don’t; I don’t need to know the how if I know if you did not come up with the what and the why like this would be better for this group of people. You know, clients, customers, whatever. Yes. At that moment, I don’t need to know how to do it. If there’s a market and a demand there, somebody can pay because, you know, they don’t work for free. 

So, I think there’s got to be a leap of faith on some level like you go to the ledge. 

And as a potential entrepreneur or business owner, that person has seen something better. This literally might be the reason why they’re on the planet. They have seen something better that they could bring into existence, so they go to the ledge and no matter, no matter how many people you talk to, no matter how much research you do, no matter how much experience you have, they’re not going to know exactly how it’s going to work out. 

I mean, you won’t know exactly how to do it. You can do the due diligence. I’m not saying to fly by night. I’m not saying to be knee-jerk, do the due diligence, talk to people you know, and put things across the people, but ultimately, you have to go to the ledge. 

And you got to decide whether you’re going to jump. Right. Just imagine Steve Jobs probably all heard of him. Could you imagine if he had gone to people and said something like, hey, I’m thinking about inventing a little device about the size of a postage stamp? I’m going to put 10,000 songs on it. What do you think about that idea? I’m pretty sure most people just said to imagine the technology back then. This was way before this powerful that he came out with, right?

People just said, dude, you’re crazy. I got into telecoms when I was young, after I joined the army, and after grad school. I was, you know, a revenue assurance manager trying to figure out how to make money and deal with revenue leakage for telecom companies. There was this project where something about SMS was involved, and I had to evaluate the market potential of SMS. I was back then—I phoned you to talk to you. The phones had voicemail. Some of the folks even had e-mails. 

So, I looked at SMS. You can send a short little message. I was like, why would anybody ever use that? I couldn’t even see that people would use that. So, my analysis and expectation SMS, which you know you know is texting, right? I expected that it would be a feature nobody would use, right?

I was 100% wrong. But whoever came up with that idea, whatever individual, whatever group, whatever team, got it right. And so. But if they would ask me, hey, Kirk, I came up with this solution: SMS. What do you think about it? I’ve told him I don’t do it. I did. I did. Tell him, don’t do it.

Wow.

And but they could see something. I’m not them. They were born for something different than me. They have the freedom of their purpose. I couldn’t see it, but they could. Even now, when I work with business owners, I never evaluate. Whether I think they have a good idea, only they know. I can help them think about options. Go to market. What’s 8020? What’s driving outcomes? How do you make money pricing? They only know if it’s a go or not.

No. Go. 

So, no matter how much research you do, if you think you’ve got something, if you feel it, go to the ledge and jump. I know that you’ll figure it out.

That is, that is interesting because, yes, estimates changed the 21st century. Now everybody’s just doing SMS. But yeah, it’s strange how, even in the last 100 years, all these ideas revolutionized everything, like the Internet. This technology is like even cars like. We used to do. Horses, like if you went to somebody in the 17th century, you told them that you’d see planes flying and cars going one day. They would have called you. They would have thought you were out of your mind.

They’ve tied you to a stake, put lots of fuel around it, and let you on fire as some kind of witch, maybe colorful. Well, just think about it right now. 

So, we were saying that at one point in 1800, they thought everything that would be invented was invented in 1800, all the machines and stuff. OK, just imagine at this point right now. The new things on the front here that we just barely understand, like blockchain.

Like AI chat.

Right. Robotics. With the AI brain. A web 3. That’s just a small sampling of ratings, not just going to change AI, not just become smarter. AI will impact every industry, including healthcare, scientific research, religion, etc. In some ways, we probably wouldn’t have gotten there if we had gone to the whiteboard. Could. 

We couldn’t even conceive of all those entrepreneurs out there, hundreds of millions of people with their creativity, life experience, experience, and specific problems, where they’re going to say something to the effect of somebody should. That’s the opportunity.

Wow. No, I mean, it’s true, right? So, even with an idea, you must act on it. Just because somebody tells you – you can’t do it – doesn’t mean you should listen. It would be best if you went for it. 

But you should also find a practical way to bring that idea to fruition. Because yeah, there’s also the converse side of it: You have the imagination, but you’re not doing practical things like asking what the numbers are. 

How are you going to go about doing it? How are you going to get funded? Where are you going to get the capital from? Those things also matter. It’s kind of like the balance between the two worlds. There are the dreamers. And then there’s the practical doers. Ultimately, you have to have a balance of both.

You figured it out. Well, think about McDonald’s, right? You had McDonald’s brothers. They admitted something cool, but they kept it local, and then someone else came along the milkshake salesman and said, ah, right. This is a bigger a bigger play here. 

And he sold real estate of that kind. Of stuff so. It there, there’s, there’s definitely. I think it’s smart not to bet the farm right on one. Whatever your go-to-market or prototype is for your product or service, do it in a way. Most likely. Cosmo, I’m pretty sure that this is a concept you’re familiar with. Most like that, whatever that vision is for that new product or service, how it will benefit the people you can touch. Keep that vision constant, right? That is. Possible. OK then. The go to the go to market, the strategy, the tactics that make this reality, the team members, your partners, and those things, on average, will change six times. Right. 

But hold the vision constant. Don’t diminish What you want. You’re here to bring into the world then have coffee. You Figure it out. 

You know who to do what with, and so definitely don’t, but don’t bet the farm because the first thing you do probably won’t work how you thought it was. Like at foresight, you know, nine years ago were brought to mark. I thought certain things would work. And they didn’t. Right. 

So, this expects versions 2, 3, and 4; it’s a data point, huh? OK, you take the first shot and see where it lands. Adjust. They take the second one.

So, you don’t want to. You don’t want to bet the farm on just that. That first shot, and then you’re out of fuel because of what? Right. So. So, I appreciate your sense of being practical that it takes. It takes more than just a great vision.

Yeah. I mean, there are always the dreamers and then the doers; you all have to find a practical way to make that vision a reality. OK, you have the vision. OK, that’s well, well, and good. So please give me the numbers. What? How are we going to go about doing that? 

And so, because honestly, there are a lot of ideas out there. People are thinking up ideas all the time, but how are they? However, very few of those ideas make it into a business where they get scaled, and that idea changes everything. Like, you know, the iPhone was one of them. 

But there could have been thousands of other ideas that never saw the light. Today, they didn’t know how to get funding because they weren’t in the right place at the right time. They didn’t know how to do numbers. They didn’t know how to do business. Like many people in the audience, they probably have an idea they want to see go through, but they don’t have. They’re like, OK, I don’t know how to do a business or how do I go about doing this. Do you know how the wins and all that stuff are?

Yeah, make it make sense. If you want to put numbers to only 9% of businesses, make it past a million of revenue. So even businesses doing 2/3/4/5 million, it’s like you’re way out on the curve, and only 4.8% of businesses are around after ten years.

So, it’s not like taking a job, and you’re more or less guaranteed that paycheck, right? It’s guaranteed anything.

So, Kirk, what, in your opinion, makes these 5% of businesses successful versus the 90 to 95% of businesses that eventually fail and don’t make it? What traits should the CEOs or the business have to make it succeed?

Let’s talk about the first thing. So, there’s somebody relatively new to being an entrepreneur. If they have a W2 job, some kind of job, you know, could be a contractor, an employee, or a job they rely on to get money. The Smart, the smart thing. Most businesses will take longer. It doesn’t mean forever, but getting a business off the ground and getting market traction takes longer than a person would expect. That’s normal. The world just has friction and doesn’t work on someone else’s time, you know, timeline.

 So, if somebody has employment, I encourage them to keep that employment going. Start their company on the side. You figure out some of these basic things without being financially dependent on the company, right? And then, at some point, you hit the tipping point where you’re making enough money in the business, you already have tracks, and you already have customers, and you already figured out how to deliver. Then, if somebody has a full-time or part-time job, they can. They can switch over to the company full-time.

 So that’s kind of the first thing. I wouldn’t just get an. Idea. Quit the job the next day and start something fresh. The other thing is. Don’t. I have seen people do this quite a bit, especially before, like in the case of COVID-19. They start a company. The first thing I do is get an office space, equipment, and office staff. How about getting a customer? How about that? Right. And then they tap into, you know, they work. One thousand five hundred twenty years somewhere saved money, and their savings are just, you know, cash is fueled to a business, right? 

And then you can see the savings drying up. While they operate a presence in this day and age, you didn’t need it back then. You can operate almost anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.

So, start with these beliefs that you have to start. There might be other types of beliefs, but people generally have beliefs. They come from an unconscious place. I have to start a business this way. Probably not. At least ask yourself to come up with at least two or three alternatives. Good alternatives? Well, what? And you can run through them and figure out what’s more viable. 

So, I think that’s important, right? So, you know, develop innovative ways and start your business where you can have real clients and deliver real value. Before you start taking on expenses, overhead, office, and that kind of stuff, you want to preserve your cash and use it optimally. I’ll be ready for multiple tactic changes.

I will probably include it. Be careful who you get married to. Not in a personal relationship, but in a business relationship, right? Be careful. There’s always somebody popping up who wants to be a partner.

Yeah.

Right. Oh, right. But I guarantee you, they don’t know what they will do. It’s funny because the statistics in America show that 50 to 60% of marriages are just gone, and that’s even more so for business partners. That’s why the percentage is even higher in partnerships.

Be more thoughtful about who you commit to, you know, because at that point, sweat equity. Here’s one where I made a mistake in the previous business: We’re in it together. True team. We’re in it together. 

So, I have partners in a business where you get half, I get half, and that person did show up. I did not come through, and I was. I was young when I was in my 20s. 

So, I learned certain things. Like with partnership, you can have. You have stock where there are voting rights. You have stock; there are nonvoting rights. There’s one option. You can also have a callback period, like if I have a partner like with foresight. There was a five-year clawback period. The partner had to perform for the past five years. Before they get, they get to keep the stock, and if they fall short at any point before that, let’s say year 4.5. You know, they’re not doing what the business needs. I call back 100% of the stock, and they get 0 value, right? 

Because you didn’t …  anybody can talk, but no one knows. You never know what someone else will do until they do it. So, I’m not quite sure what to do early on in business that will happen, especially if I’m a new entrepreneur. 

And then, you know, the partner shows up on the horizon that I feel. I feel like I’m not alone anymore because I’m isolated. We should talk about that in a moment. Is it a big handicap? If you do, if you do something with a partner, you know, kind of write out what you know about your current understanding. 

Please don’t make it too detailed because your business will evolve often. The main thing is that the partner, like you, evolves with the business.  And the partner is giving real value, and they’re doing that through five years, earning their stock. But even then, don’t give up control. Make sure you keep 51%. And allow for there to be others. Yeah. You’re in your 10th year of business. You might also have to keep space for other people to earn equity. 

Can I say something about isolation?

Yeah, totally.

1. If there’s one thing that kills the business, it is working; isolate it to the self-made person who is just going on what you know. Boy, there’s a lot of landmines like you. You laid it out. There’s a lot of land mines that have. A person works in isolation and has to learn everything firsthand. I’m on the way to having a lot more land mines. I just want to bet there are all kinds of business groups out there, right? 

You can pay for some, like Vistage, and there are all kinds of CEO coaches. Plus, you can make your own. You can combine business owners and your community or industry to create a mastermind.

You’re learning from each other. You can bounce ideas off when you’re thinking about something, or if something’s not going well, you can. You can experience and share that, and nobody can tell another person what to do because of everyone’s situation. There are differences, but you can experience, I can say, hey, Cosmo in a similar situation, this is what was going on. This is what we did. This is the outcome. And then you’re smart enough to figure out what you want to try and what you want to do for your own business, but working in isolation over the years, I mean, I was working with Richard Ross, and this is like, I don’t know, 20 years ago or something. 

I was a relatively young financial analyst, and he was spending a certain amount of money on the strategic coach, Dan Sullivan. And it was a lot of money. And I liked Richard Ross. I said, Richard, what is this? He explained that a mastermind and peer experience share these proven methods. I looked, you know, I was a young financial analyst.

I looked at him and told him we’re trying to build a business to get somewhere, or you’re trying to live a Country Club lifestyle. I didn’t understand the value of collaboration like that—the peer group. Years later, I started to notice the difference. I worked for a lot of different private companies, everything from Himalayan salt companies in Pakistan to education companies, tech companies, and, I mean, construction companies. 

I mean, just a lot, right telecom, and I know the difference between business owners and a peer group. And those that don’t have a peer group don’t have a peer group? Their minds are open, they collaborate, and they have other trusted people when they need a resource or expertise; they have people to reach out to. The ones that didn’t have a peer group isolated they tend to get. Everybody gets stuck sometimes. 

Sometimes, the businesses grow, and sometimes, they flatten out, sometimes whatever. It’s normal. However, the ones that did not have a peer group were isolated, and they were almost like you can imagine. But the darkness, despair, right, uncertainty. Doubt self-doubt Everybody has self-doubt, but there is a lot more self-doubt over here, so that’s something I would tap into local community communities. I would intentionally foster my mastermind group whether I pay somebody to do it like this stage or make it my own.

You’re the five people that you hang out with the most. So, what you’re saying is right because you don’t want to be around people not helping you grow. And that’s, unfortunately, what most people do. I wouldn’t say much, but a lot, like most people today, are surrounded by people who are not helping them grow.

I think it’s a good point. You can go a step further and say if people are holding you back, create distance between you and them.

A lot of times, those people tend to be—your family members.

Most of the time, yeah.

Yeah, like a lot. Yeah. Most of the time. Often, family members hold people back. They always keep giving self-doubt, negative talk, close friends, and everything. We must be careful because it can get into your subconscious mind. It will affect you, but what you say about masterminds, communities, and peers is completely different. 

Yeah. And then you add to what you read and what you listen to. I mean, some entertainment is cool, but how much of that? What about other things that expand the thinking podcast? Podcasts are phenomenal. I mean, the long-form interviews where you can get into what somebody thinks. Yeah. How much time is spent on that kind of stuff versus, you know, the noise? Yes, business ownership. You’re in it. You’re doing it. You’re finding a way. It’s challenging. It’s also a huge source of personal development. In some ways, you are the product of your business.

And so are your employees, right? And if you have the right heart and mindset, you can. You can elevate each other. You can elevate yourself and it. And I don’t know; there’s nothing better than seeing somebody on the team go beyond their self-imposed limits, go from the cover zone to the growth zone, and do things they never thought they could do.

And Kirk? Yeah, go ahead.

I would say they’re doing it again, and that becomes a way of life, right? Continuous mastery.

Kirk, this is exactly one of the reasons why I started Extraordinary America. What you just said right now regarding podcast self improvement and all this stuff like you and especially the entire concept of American National identity, which is about freedom, right? But the main point is we have to attain time and financial freedom. 

One of the reasons I started is that many Americans are not free when it comes to finances and time. They’re not. They’re doing two to three jobs or living paycheck to paycheck. They’re doing the bills and all that stuff. 

There’s a discrepancy between who we are as Americans and the freedom part when it comes to their time and finances. So, in your perspective, how would Americans achieve time and financial freedom?

Well, first, let me give credit to you, man, that’s what’s brilliant here. We’re crunching about freedom, and you know, first, we’re only 250 years old. We brought a lot into the world because of that freedom. But we’re well; I don’t think many people feel furry. You know, and it’s pretty heavy, right? There’s negativity in mainstream media. It’s a negative kind of stuff. And when you see it, you see plenty. Plenty of people are working. You know, those active hours in the business, massive hours, that people believe they have to if they need more money. Do more hours. 

So, there’s a second job working on the weekends, and anybody doing that. I bet you that other parts of your life are suffering. I bet your relationship that if they’re married, husband, wife. I bet your kids’ friendships are suffering. 

There is a good chance anybody is doing active hours. I’ve worked 60 hours or 70/80 hours a week. I remember talking to a business owner several months ago. I’ll never forget her. She’s older than me. She’s got to be doing 80 hours a week, and you could hear her voice. I mean, anybody working like that must be taking a toll on their relationships. 

It’s got to be taking a toll on their health. They’re running on a treadmill so hard and fast that they are gaining—financial freedom. Are they any better off, you know, to the point where the tire often blows out? They don’t have money to get the car fixed, right? 

And so, you know, I’ve been there. It’s painful right to be in that situation. But everything. Culturally, we believe you should work more hours if you need more money. You know, versus how do I, whatever the pay rate is, how do I double the pay rate? Right. How do I increase the value? What I’m doing right now is I can work the same hours for double the money. I can work half the hours and get the same money. There are lots of beliefs about it. I see many potential entrepreneurs say I need money to make money.

Oh, OK, I see many entrepreneurs go out and raise money. They bring in all this external money and burn it, right? Because they haven’t. They haven’t worked out the basic stuff yet. They give away huge chunks of their business, burn the cash, and then return and raise more money. 

So, there’s a belief we need money to make money. You got to go out and raise money of this kind. Of stuff we. We have a culture that’s hyper-divisionism, right? We’re it’s all about consumption. Then, it’s all about being happy; you can see the impact on relationships like couples, young men, and young women. They’re growing.

We’re Better Together. Why are we trying to compete and bring each other down? People load themselves on debt, right? They give credit cards away like candy, right? And then there’s an economic advance that economic economies are always in cycles, so in recessions, people lose their homes and their jobs. 

And then right behind that is the inflation. Even if you have a salary, it just means how come I’m at McDonald’s and can’t buy anything, right? And you know, inflation is up. If you have savings, right? It just eases it up. 

So, there are cycles that keep knocking people. Knocking people down, there are beliefs. That caused me to spend more money, which could cause a person to spend more than they have. Then, some cycles will allow you to get two steps ahead, but then the cycles knock you back down. And then, we are very antagonistic on Main Street. What do you know? Why are we? We want different political ideas, right? We want different people at the table to, you know, bring things into fruition that we’re not. We’re not acting that way. So, I think more. I think more than in a long time, we’ve been through things before, like the 1960s, and I’m sure the Civil War was tough, you know, and Revolutionary War, you know, imagine fighting the British Empire. I mean, that didn’t make sense. Right. 

We’ve been through tough things before, and I’ll get through this. But a lot of people are not getting it. They’re working hard but not getting the benefits that could come with that.

So, Kirk, you mentioned inflation, and I couldn’t agree more. Right now, many people’s wages are not matching inflation, and it’s not catching up. And on top of that, they’re taking on debt. 

So, in your opinion, what should Americans do about this? In my opinion, they need to get an education when it comes to business, and they need to get an education on how the monetary system works, how finance works, how to start a business, entrepreneurship, and all of that. But, like, because that’s the only way through education. When you truly get financial freedom and time, freedom, and right now, the traditional schools, colleges, and universities are only teaching theory. They don’t teach anything practical for the most part. But I know what. What is your opinion on that?

Yeah. I mean, inflation will hit like cash assets, right? Inflation prices go up. Whatever cash you have, the value of that is, it your salary get, you know at a fixed amount is the purchasing power decreases, cash savings, whatever you are having in cash savings, the value of that’s decreasing.

 The flip side of inflation is that homes normally appreciate because prices increase. If you have debt, the repayment on that debt is fixed dollars, but if you increase your income, you have more dollars to pay the fixed debt amount, assuming that it’s fixed debt.

So, the rule of thumb is don’t leave—you know, don’t leave your nest egg. Cash and cash come in, and the bank comes in different ways, such as money markets, reports, CDs, etc. It’s all liquid cash stuff—the place to. You know, look, look, look at where to put your money, where it’s going to keep pace with whatever is going on in the marketplace with inflation, including you. 

You have public investments, which people trade for a lot. You got private investments depending on where you’re at in life, and you got. I’m a fan of precious metals because push comes to shove, push comes to shove. You know, platinum and gold are a currency, right? You can take that with you and buy something. I don’t think somebody should do 100%, you know, get gold bars and bury them in their basements. But it’s something to consider.

So, there’s a lot of talk that the FED will create a digital cryptocurrency, and then they’ll just use that. But yes, we normally return to gold, silver, and platinum in financial recessions and crises.

And. Yeah. You know, throughout societies, that’s kind of been, you know, the precious metals have been consistent at some point. You know, there will be cryptocurrencies that are stable and used like currency. They’re traded. You can. You can store value and use it to trade. I’m not there yet with cryptocurrency, but it’s just too. It’s too emotional. Right

It’s too much volatility—some of the kind of person. You know, like, like, doing things that matter. I’m all for that level of feelings, you know, cared about people doing that kind of stuff. But I’m not good with emotional markets. It’s stock, emotional stock market. It’s emotional cryptocurrency. That is building, you know, the promised land for folks if we talk about what’s smart. I’m working on the second half of my personal life and business. The first half, like business building, gross, CFO, Business, Building Man, nailed that and got good at doing that. 

The other side of how multi-generational wealth was created is that I’m learning that, right? A new concept is how to put money to work for multiple generations. That’s not about consumption because I’m a trustee for… It’s not Rockefeller, but it’s that type of family. I’m a trustee for that. If you’re born into that family as a baby, you get about 3 to $4 million. And then on top of that three or three or $4 million on top of that, there’s 150 different. Pause. And the baby didn’t earn any of that. 

So, the baby comes into this. This life is not quite ready for me. They do a great job managing financial assets, legal liability, and privacy. You couldn’t find them on a map, but they don’t. They don’t develop the people very well, and I’ve seen how damaging that is to them… To the family members.

So when I think about multi-generational legacy, I’m thinking about how you, you know, have resources that the humans down the line are developed, they have backing that kind of stuff. That’s a whole area. I’m at the point I’m on that second mountain in life. I’m with different groups and experts. I’m learning to collaborate on YouTube. I’m watching those kinds of things. 

We built the Freedom platform for my growth CFO company so that growth CFOs can do this work with business building. Then, in two weeks this March, I’m rolling out the Life flight plan for somebody like me. You can figure out life.

So, Kirk, which brings to, brings you to the next thing I wanted to ask you: can you tell me that it’s a little bit more about the founding, about the premise on which growth CFO started, how you went about starting it, and what it is about?

Yeah, it started that there. There’s a better way, like when most U.S. business owners think about the gross CFO. So, the gross CFO is the person we don’t want to talk with, right? Because you go, you go to the traditional CFO, and I got this great idea. I want to create wealth. I want to do this. I want to do that. And what does the CFO say right and say no, you don’t have money? Play it safe so that the traditional CFO is a business owner. I mean, he didn’t help me. You know, how about how about you come up with some options? Please help me figure it out. How do we do it? Come up with three options. You’ll work with the team members. You know, the CFO works with the team members across the company. Figure out three options where it could work. Right then. Then make sure we do it in a way that’s cash-positive, right? 

So, we’re not betting on the farm again. So, so that’s it, it was years of experience. I just see a lot of role confusion about what a CFO is. Most CFOs are accountants to controllers, and that kind of response is an accountant response gross. Those are the kind of people I’ve seen play out. It grows simple as that person where you go to them. You have some ideas, and they will work with your peers. Just pick out three options. So at least you get to an option, and they’re, and they’re, they’re valid. Here’s how it adds up. Here’s what puts, you know, the better outcome for your people, including your customers, and the better outcome for money. Right. And that’s gross. Yes.

 The big thing is no one person can know everything about business building, and we do it instead of an isolated CFO. We do it as a growth CFO, a three-person team. We work 90-day sprints, and different team members have different roles. Most stuff is being done backstage.

So, it’s not putting any kind of responsibility on a business owner who already has enough of it, and it starts with the destination. Where do you want to end up if you, Cosmo, leave your business? What do you want? Not for your business but for you. Where are you at your best? What were you? What? What role? What? What were you born to do then? All the way through, you know, relationships, that kind of stuff. What do you care about? From that, we can figure out how to build the business. What’s the right role for you? Because most U.S. business owners have too many hats on. We’re overwhelmed. We’re working massive hours, right? 

We’re getting paid like seven bucks an hour. When you break it. Many of us think the financial outcomes are good, but the life outcomes are not good, right? You know, relationships are suffering divorce and the kids, that kind of stuff. Sometimes, the second most common problem is that business is growing, and it feels like the wings are coming off right. What used to work doesn’t work. You can’t quite figure stuff out and start to lose money. The third biggest problem is the stock. Year after year, you know, keep trying new things, different things, and don’t get anywhere, and it’s painful.

So, we start with your destination, work backward, and figure out your financial flight plan. If you want to go from 5 million to 15,000,000, what does that look like? Right. And where does the household income come in? 

At the same time, how do we increase the value of your business with it? Now, we can see it based on not just a database but actually. There’s. Real, we know what the options are in the business; we work with team members, and then we develop team members to use the numbers better, right? But people don’t like using numbers, and it’s not a natural skill. 

So, we teach them how to use it at Daddy Dashboard, where they can take action on what they control—ensuring that we’re doing things in a cash-positive way.

So, you have a velocity of cash in the business, and you can make payroll easy. Then, we teach people to run scenarios. Like, you know, it’s a budget flight plan that you do the what-if, so you run scenarios.

 It’s critical thinking: Well, what if I do this? What if I do that? You can see the best path with the numbers. A gross CFO does that, but we elevate when involved with people. They’re our destination. We have a financial flight plan to get there, and then we have the skills of the team members who use the numbers daily to make the right decision.

I would advise anybody watching this to check out your company because if they want to start a business and they want to know how to do that, you’d be one of those guys. I would recommend it, but I know you also wrote a book called The Growth CFO Void, which would be an Amazon bestseller. Can you tell me more about that book?

Yeah. First, I have to laugh because I’m a numbers guy. What am I doing? Writing the book, right? This was before there was an I would. I would write it. The book was amazing, right? I wrote the book. The process gave me a chance to get clarity, and that’s in the book, which is stories about what type of business owner or crack person versus mountain climber. 

So people can start seeing themselves. Then, based on that, how do you use the gross CFO skills with numbers and data to take on the five obstacles to business building? Like, how do I win customers? 

How do I keep customers? How do I build people capacity? How do I proactively get access to capital? Right, so? Those are the main activities of any business. And then all that’s being done is on the foundation of the habits of profitability, which are things we just talked about. You know, look at the monthly financials like a scoreboard. 

So, the black and white team, you know, team members can see where they’re at and take action doing the budgets, and budgets have a bad name that is bureaucratic. What if you do the budget with intellectual curiosity, or what if we go into the new market? What if we do a what if we create a new product? What if we sell more existing products to our current customers than new customers? You can do scenarios and figure out where the wins are, and for many businesses, businesses have been around for a little while. They have a track record. You can go in. I don’t know if you ever heard of the 80/20 Prado principle; you can go in.

It doesn’t matter what it is; it could be employees, customers, or products. You do—the 80/20, which ones are working and making money you can. Look at. 80% of my money is made from 20% of our product. You could stop doing 80% of all that complexity. You get rid of 80% of all this stuff that is not working. Focus on the 20 that is producing most of your results, and all of a sudden, you’re cash-flowing. Do you mind if I tell you a story about a business owner that illustrates that one?

This is a true story. It was actually in El Paso, TX, where a business owner was doing commercial cleaning. OK, government contractors spend $30 million a year in commercial cleaning, which is my book; that’s a lot of cleaning. Can you imagine how many offices you must clean for $30 million? 

And I talked about her life, what’s going on? Her household income was. Not much. Doing all this work for a little bit of money, you could. Have. I’ve been working 7-11 and doing about the same. I’m exaggerating for a fact, but now you get a, you know, 6th grader. 

But So, what, you know. We ran the 80/20 look at what contracts you’re making money on. She could stop doing $21 million of work. So, just keeping the 9 million that’s making money and 4X her household income to almost $1,000,000. Right by, stop doing the stuff that’s not this. Prune the branches that aren’t growing or worth growing or losing money. But you’d never know that. You know, she’s an ambitious business person. She wants to win the contracts, so she bid the contracts below. Cost: The contracts might be fixed labor going up, and the material cost is going up.

 So, at some point, some of the contracts are underwater. She’s doing less free work. She’s paying money to clean somebody else’s office. Just get rid of those marginal customers. The ones that you’ll never make happy. For example, 80/20 less work, 1/3 of work, and 4X your household income. And you can put that all in place within a year. You’ve got to unwind. Some of these contracts. Oh, that feels how that feels, right?

The numbers give clarity like nothing else, right? You can’t. You can only measure a number, right? And it does become black and white. You know what? What? When you do sell, when you do marketing for leads, there’s usually 8020. Most of your leads and client acquisition work comes from 20% of the activity. So, at some point. Maybe stop, maybe not. Stop the 80%. Then maybe stop 50% and keep doing some trial and error and other stuff, you know, not trial and error, but research and development, right? Because marketing is always moving. So.

Like you all like.

The 80/20 principle applies to many things. I understood that principle about a decade ago, and I try to employ it in my own life, and it’s true. You know, a lot of times, a lot of things that we do end up. You are being redundant, but. We need to focus on the things that lead to monetization, such as prioritizing most of our efforts. 

But Kirk, are you working on any projects or programs you want the audience to participate in? Give us a glimpse into them.

So, foresight, CFO, and gross CFO do it with your work. It’s going well, and at this point, clients come in, and they have the experience kind of experience. Provide. So what? What I’m moving into is the life piece, right? How do we help somebody have that vivid vision of their future self and the bucket list and, you know, resources so that that’s where 

I’m going to spend more of my time. Small groups of business owners. Three times a year, working on life. Because I know the more clarity we get about that where that part’s working for them. It makes the Gross CFO work so much better, and with most new clients, we don’t start by getting married. Oh, gross CFO. Everybody needs one. Let’s get married. We start by doing. We do that financial flight plan for them as a project; at that point, we know. If we can come through for them and they know if we can come through for them, it’s a small, simple way to take a first step. You know it’s more than a date but a really good date.

That is also Kirk and Kirk. How can our audience connect with you and learn more about you, your work, your company, and everything else? That you do.

The best thing to do is email me at kirk@forsythcfo.com, kirkwmclaren.com, and foresightcfo.com. Then, we’ll have a call to share your vision and what you want to get out of it—out of your life and business. From there, there are potential next steps.

That is awesome, Kirk. I’m so grateful that you took the time to do the show with me because you’re the financial fear guy, and destroying America is all about financial freedom and time. Freedom as well, right? We need Americans on a national scale to know that they need to get their national identity on the financial front, and they have to do something. In terms of business? Nation. That’s all. Honestly, the only way they’re going to get there is by knowing how to do business and knowing how to invest.

So what you’re doing is so important that I cannot understand how important it is, and I appreciate everything you do.

Yeah, and because. I love what you’re doing. You are returning this to our founding principles, like why we’re here as Americans. So I love that you’re doing that for us. Thank you.

I appreciate her and would like you to come to the show later.

Yeah. I look forward to it.

And. And I want to conclude this episode by letting my fellow extraordinary  Americans know that, hey, look, there’s an extraordinary within every one of us, and we must awaken it and unleash it until next time. Bye for now.