Episode 146 – Nelson Tressler

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Richard Matthews  0:01  

Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers, and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there was one class of heroes that I think is often ignored the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, you know what I can fix that I can help people I can make a difference. And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to the Hero Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest hero preneurs and learn the secrets to their powers their success and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money, and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3…2…1…

 

Richard Matthews  0:38  

Hello, and welcome back to the Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews and today I have the pleasure of having Nelson Tressler on the line, Nelson are you there?

 

Nelson Tressler  1:02  

Yeah, I’m here. Thanks for having me, Richard. 

 

Richard Matthews  1:05  

Awesome. so glad to have you, Nelson. So what I want to do real quick, is dive into your bio for those of my audience who don’t know who you are, and then we can start chatting a little bit about your story. So, Nelson Tressler is known as the uplifter of underdogs. And you have an interesting story, your success and life philosophy come from your unique beginnings, which involve a pretty fanciful story of rape, murder, extreme poverty, and the biggest trial ever to hit a small town. And those were just a few of the things waiting for you upon your birth, child of a 15 year old mother, your young life, have you starting at the bottom, oldest of five children raised in poverty by an abusive stepfather. And you turn that turned resourcefulness and tenacity into a life skill, played college football, join the US Air Force. And you completed tours of Saudi Arabia and Turkey, thank you for your service, by the way. Upon leaving the Air Force, you fulfilled your first big goal of being the first person in his extended family to receive a college degree. And I know you were mentioning earlier, you’ve gotten to the point where you’ve built and sold a couple of businesses as well. Is that right?

 

Nelson Tressler  2:12  

Yeah, I’ve been fortunate enough to sell a few business chains that we started and exit those and now doing this and trying to help other people, live out their dreams.

 

Richard Matthews  2:25  

Awesome. So what I want to start with then is to find out what it is that you’re known for, right? What’s your business like now? Who do you serve? What do you actually sell to the public? If anything at this point, what’s the primary driving thing that you’re doing right now?

 

Nelson Tressler  2:45  

Yeah. So right now, I just released my book, The unlucky sperm Club, which kind of tells my story and the story of my life kind of getting through the last great recession and my childhood, and it’s kind of a memoir, slash self help book, just released that November 12th. And what we’re working on right now is we’ve developed an app, it’s called I got smarter. And the app is a goal fulfillment program that helps people finally achieve their life’s biggest goals, by giving them all the tools, the knowledge, and the support to finally see their goals through. I mean, one thing that we realize is, most people don’t have a knowledge problem when it comes to fulfilling their dreams and goals. They have an execution problem, they just don’t do what they know they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it. And that’s what this app will do. This app will help them,  become crystal clear on what they want to accomplish. And then crystal clear on the next step that has to happen in order to fulfill that dream in that goal. 

 

Richard Matthews  3:49  

And does that app come live?

 

Nelson Tressler  3:51  

Yeah, that app is live, I will say we used to it was called six months to success. And that app is still out there as well. But we originally envisioned the business as people meeting together in a group and going through the goal process with a guide that helped them, but with a pandemic, that was no longer feasible. So we’ve totally redesigned it. That’s it. So we totally redesigned the app. I got smarter as the program that we used in both models but I got smarter is totally virtual. You can download the app you can invite a success partner to help you on your journey to success and I think that’s one of the things that’s our secret sauce is finally being able to get somebody else involved in your goals and helping you stick with it.

 

Richard Matthews  4:50  

Yeah, absolutely. I was just getting texted by a buddy of mine. We’ve been going through a workout program together and every morning, we text each other like here’s what we accomplished this morning. It’s just better to have a running partner than to try and do it by yourself.

 

Nelson Tressler  5:06  

Yeah. And that’s the premise with the app is, you have that real time update. So every morning, we go through a morning ritual where you plan out your day, and the app automatically populates your task list through the questions that you get asked. And when you review your goal and what your goal to-do’s are. And we teach gratitude every day, there’s a lot of things in there that I’ve used over my past 25 years of being obsessed with goals and personal development. And you as a partner can see when your partner either accomplishes their morning ritual, or by a certain time in the morning if they don’t, and then you get an alert to say, Hey, your partner either completed it, and you can give them kudos, or they didn’t, and maybe you can give them a little bit of encouragement to get it done and get that day planned and get after your goals.

 

Richard Matthews  6:01  

Absolutely, that sounds really cool. I just downloaded it. So I’m gonna, I’ll test it out here afterward. Because I’ve got several things I’m working on finishing, and it’s always better to have people helping you push through them. So what I want to dive into then, is your origin story. So we say on the show, every good comic book hero has an origin story. It’s a thing that made them into the hero they are today. Whether you were, we say, born a hero or a bit by a radioactive spider that turned you into a hero. Or maybe you started in a job at some point and eventually became an entrepreneur. What I want to know is where you came from, and what made you want to get into this whole entrepreneurship world.

 

Nelson Tressler  6:45  

Yeah, I’ve got quite the original origin story. My mom became pregnant with me when she was 15 years old. While she was pregnant with me, her father, who was the local trash collector in a small town, my mom was one of 15 children. Her father drove into the small town square there, he spotted two police officers, he stuck a gun out the window and open fire on those police officers killing one and critically wounding another. He was eventually captured and brought to stand trial where he was facing the death penalty. My mom testified at my grandfather’s trial that the reason that he had shot and killed that police officer was that that police officer had raped her. And she was now pregnant with his baby, who was me. And so that’s kind of where my life started. And then eventually, my mom’s a teenage mother, she turns 21, she meets a man who eventually becomes my stepfather come to find out, he’s an alcoholic, very abusive to me and my mother, and dealing with that on a daily basis. Eventually, my mom has four more children with him. And because of the lifestyle that they’re living, I don’t tend to go to school very much in those times, my mom would rather me stay home and help with the kids. And I remember in the fourth grade, looking down at my report card, and seeing straight F’s and the fact that I would be held back in school, and I couldn’t read, I couldn’t write, I still can’t spell. But you know, at this time that they decide to put me into special Ed to get the help that I needed. Come to find out I have dyslexia. And so that’s kind of where my life began. And eventually. 

 

Richard Matthews  8:37  

The unlucky sperm club is an apt title then.

 

Nelson Tressler  8:40  

Yeah and that’s my book, my book is kind of the subtitle is, you’re not a victim of your circumstances, you’re a product of your choices. And a lot of that seems like those were the circumstances I was born into. But you always have a choice. And that’s what eventually I realized is I was responsible for my success. And I needed to start making those choices to live the life that I wanted to live.

 

Richard Matthews  9:11  

So how did you go from that kind of upbringing to being the kind of person who has built and sold several businesses?

 

Nelson Tressler  9:21  

So eventually, my stepfather was walking home drunk from a bar one night, and somebody else was driving home drunk from that bar, and they ended up hitting and killing my stepfather. And it was at this time that my mom had dropped out of school in the eighth grade, never worked outside of the home, and now she has five children. And for the first time, as hard as her life had been up to this point, for the first time, she has no hope of being able to raise our family on her own. And it’s at this time that she decides that she wants to take her own life, and she attempts suicide and thankfully, she was not successful. But our family got split up at that time. And when my mom was released from the hospital, it was at that time that she realized she couldn’t care for all of us on her own. And I went to go live with my grandmother, the wife of the man who shot and killed the police officer. And for the first time in my life, I kind of had a life where I didn’t have to worry about somebody coming home and drunk and beating me or my mom didn’t have to worry about caring for kids. And even though education was not a huge priority in our family, of my gram’s 15 children, only two had ever graduated from high school, none had ever even attended college. And but for the first time, I had a stable childhood. And my Gram’s one role was is that you are going to go to school, she didn’t really care how well you did at school, but you were going to go to school, and that was probably for her own sanity, she had 15 kids, that was probably her only free time of the day is when the kids were in school. So I started to realize I wasn’t stupid. And then one day a counselor came from a local university and talked about what you had to do to get into college. And kind of those bells and whistles went off in my head. And I started to think, wow, what if I could become that first person in my family to graduate from college. And that day, I set the goal to become that first person. And, long story short, it took me 12 years from setting that goal. It took me to four different universities. It took me four years into the Air Force. But eventually, I became the first person in my family to graduate from college.

 

Richard Matthews  11:39  

Awesome. So you graduated from college? And then after that, is that when you got into got into the business community?

 

Nelson Tressler  11:48  

Yeah, after being able to graduate from college, I became obsessed with goals and personal development, and then ended up using goals in every area of my life to really have a life I couldn’t have imagined as a kid. And I went into commercial real estate, sales, and leasing. And was in that for 20 years, use goals to become the number one salesperson worldwide in the retail division for a top five commercial firm. And then also started, more than 10 businesses, including one of the largest privately held pet resort chains in the country, and was able to exit that business started a chain of children’s learning centers, multiple businesses, I’m kind of a deal junkie, and then next month, I’m going to be celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary. And I really look back at personal development and goals, and really attribute a lot of my success on learning one how to set a goal, and then two, how to see it through to the end. And that’s why I’ve started I got smarter is to really help other people understand the power of goals, and what a difference they can make in your life.

 

Richard Matthews  13:07  

Absolutely. And I love the mindset you have, that you’re not a victim of your circumstance, and it reminds me of a discussion we keep seeing happen, in our country, and our culture lately is that we are a victim of our circumstance, and that some people are more, you might call it privileged than others. And I always hated that discussion, because I was like, I look at like, what my dad did, and his story is not quite like yours, but his father gotten a car accident and died when he was eight years old. And his mom had four kids, in the 60s, and she was alone, and by the time he was 15 had to work to support his family and his mother and those kinds of things. And I remember, we had a great life growing up I had everything I ever wanted kind of thing and I know that he worked his ass off to get himself to a point where he could put me on the shoulder of giants so to speak. So I had just a different starting point than he did. It sounds like your three boys are gonna have a significantly better starting point than you had. And it’s amazing what you can do when you really work for something.

 

Nelson Tressler  14:22  

Yeah, and that’s another thing that I believe goals not only change the generation that that are setting the goals and achieving the goals, but but they changed the generations to follow. If your father would have made some different decisions and choices, your life would be totally different. And in my life, I mean, I look at my grandfather. He was standing trial for murdering a police officer when he was 48 years old. I’m 48 years old this year, and I’m here talking to you about goals and personal development and helping people change Their lives. My mom at 17 was a single parent, with a baby. And I have a son who’s 18 years old and has a scholarship to a division one school to play baseball, made honors. And that’s the difference that goals can make, not only in your life, but the generations to follow. And hopefully, just like you said, I mean, I kind of talked about that, in my book, the unlucky sperm club of standing on the shoulders of giants so that you can go further. And one of the things I didn’t really have those strong role models growing up, but I saw what I didn’t want, and I saw what I didn’t want to become, and you know what, if you don’t have those shoulders of giants to stand on, maybe you see life, and you try to get away from what you don’t want to become. And that’s what I kind of did is I saw what I never wanted to do, I saw what I never wanted to become. And because of thisI looked further to become something that, I couldn’t even have imagined, I didn’t know what I wanted to become. But I absolutely knew what I didn’t want to become because of the influences in my life.

 

Richard Matthews  16:17  

So the real question is now at 48, do you know what you want to become?

 

Nelson Tressler  16:20  

You know what it’s a work in progress. But sitting here talking about goals and personal development with you, and helping inspire other people to really take control of their lives and realize that they can design the life that they really want. And what I’ve realized, throughout my life, is we’re all just a few choices away from having that life that we want. And maybe it starts with that one choice, like, me making that choice to become the first person to graduate from college, I can trace all of my success, and where I am now in life from that one goal. And I couldn’t even have imagined this life today when I set that goal. But that’s the great thing about goals and personal development is you don’t always have to be who you are. And as you make those choices, it’s kind of like walking through the fog, you can’t really see more than a foot or two in front of you. But as you take those small little steps, more stuff opens up to you. And that’s kind of what’s happened in my life. And I’m hoping that that’s what continues to happen that I can’t even imagine, where I can end up as I continue on this journey to help inspire other people.

 

Richard Matthews  17:39  

Yeah, it reminds me a lot of my own life choices and ending up where we are. I mentioned before we get on the call my wife and I travel full time, we got four kids, we’ve been all over the country, and we’re looking at traveling the world. And it’s one of those things like, if we go back to, it’s like 2012. And my wife and I were talking about, Hey, what do we want to accomplish in the next three years and like offhandedly wrote down, like we’d like to travel the country in a little notebook. And you just take small steps, and then suddenly, like things are happening, and you’re doing things and we got a business growing and family growing. And our kids are more storied than most adults because of the experiences they’ve had, which is super cool. And it’s like setting small goals and just moving forward on them.

 

Nelson Tressler  18:25  

Yeah, I mean, that’s one of the things in our app I got smarter is we teach people how to take big huge goals, and then break them down into what we call 30 day sprints. Because I think a lot of problems happens with people achieving their goals is they have these big huge goals, like they want to travel the world. And maybe that’s 2, 3, 4, or five years away. And what they don’t, kind of have top of mind is what can I do today to get closer to that end goal. But if you break that down, what can I do in the next 30 days to get there, and where I want to end up 30 days from now. Now that’s Top of Mind, we can see that it’s close enough, we can feel that. And when you break those big goals down like that, now you don’t have those weeks, and those months and even years of going by not doing anything to really accomplish that big goal. Because you don’t realize what difference can I make? Because it seems so big. But when you break that down to that 30 day sprint, you know exactly what you need to do. And then we even break those down even further into weekly milestones to say, Okay, here’s where I want to be, you know, seven days from now, and here’s where I want to be 14 days from now. And you always have that urgency. And a lot of people kind of fall short on their goals and really working on their goals. Because that urgency isn’t there.

 

Richard Matthews  19:48  

Yeah, and I can give you a real world example of something I’m working on right now that falls into that structure. So you mentioned traveling the world. We’re looking at buying a sailing yacht and we Have the yacht picked out, we know how much it costs. And we know how much it’s gonna cost us to actually travel in comparison to our current traveling situation. So we know where we want to get, we know it’s gonna take several years to get there, from where we are now. And since I know what the end result is, I can look at my business now. And I know that where we’re sitting now, in our business, we need to add five clients to one of our larger service area things and I’m like, okay, so if I know I need to add those five service clients that we’re offering to be able to afford the next thing, then we have to, I have to break that down into, so what do I need to do in order to get the next client? And so I’m like, I have to make sure that the service thing that I’m talking about is actually done. So we break that down into, what are the pieces that need to happen for that, and then it comes all the way down to like, the thing I need to work on today is I need to finish the headline for the sales page. Right? And it’s just one simple thing. And then tomorrow, I need to finish the body copy. And the day after I need to get the, the sales video outlined, and it’s those kind of things where you’re taking a big thing of like, I want to travel the world, and you can come all the way back down to what do I need to do today that helps me accomplish that goal. And for me, it’s like, hey, I need to write this headline. And it’s a simple, easy thing.

 

Nelson Tressler  21:17  

Well, I mean really, you think about it, it’s so profound, that those small little choices are going to get you to traveling the world, coming up with that very succinct headline that people are going to want to open the email or whatever, that’s the difference between you being able to accomplish that goal of traveling the world and not, and there’s so many goals that are like that is when we break them down into those very small little things that we have to do, we realize that these huge goals, these goals that are going to take a long time really break down into very small steps that take, literally 15, 20 minutes, one step at a time. And that’s how every journey is it’s, the journey of 1000 miles starts with one step, and it’s one step at a time. And when we break those big dreams down into that, our mind kind of can wrap around that and we feel like we really can do it. And then we can gauge our process. And our mind loves that too is they love to feel that that progress in that process and in the goal achievement.

 

Richard Matthews  22:24  

The other thing that I’ve found too, is that it also helps free up your life. Because you know what you need to accomplish now and what you need to accomplish next week. And when there’s small little steps, I can accomplish those things. And then I can go and do other things like I can hang out with my kids and go fishing with my son. And, I mentioned a few times on the show, my average workday is about four hours a day. And yet my business is growing. And, that’s just because once you learn how to do this process you’re talking about, you can accomplish the things that are important that help you get where you want to go.

 

Nelson Tressler  23:05  

And that is so true. Because so many people think they don’t have time to do their goals, they don’t have time to plan their morning and plan what they have to do. And what you realize when you are able to do that on a consistent basis is you don’t have time not to do that. And just like the lifestyle that you’re living is you’re getting everything done in four hours. And you’re probably because you take that time and that energy and you have that knowledge on how to plan your day, you’re probably accomplishing and getting more done than some people who are out there scrambling, going from one fire in one crisis to another, you’re probably getting more done in four hours, and they’re able to get done in 12 hours. So yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more.

 

Richard Matthews  23:56  

I remember specifically when I had that epiphany in my life because it was actually before we started traveling. So four or five years ago now. And I remember sitting there and I was doing the whole 12 hours a day thing and like starving and like that kind of thing where, it’s like, I don’t have time to eat kind of thing. And I have to work all the time. Because I wasn’t doing the right things. I was just trying to do everything. And I remember someone mentioned to me that creativity thrives with restrictions. And the story they told was about children on a playground where they did some tests, where they had a playground with no fence around it. So it was just like the concrete pad. And then there was the grassy area and whatnot. And the grass area had no fence around it and with no fence, the kids would stay in the concrete pad, they wouldn’t go out and explore in the rest of the big playground. And the moment they put a fence up the kids would all explore the grass area. And it was this idea that children love boundaries. And when you get down to it, creativity loves boundaries. And I started experimenting with things in my life like, hey, what if instead of having an unlimited amount of time to work during the day, I’ve only got eight hours? like eight hours is it? move on? And then instead of working eight hours, five days a week, it’s eight hours for four days a week and I take Fridays off? And then what if I only work six hours a day, what if I only work four hours a day, then you start to realize that now you’ve given yourself creative restrictions on like okay, now I have to figure out what’s actually important and you start to grow.

 

Nelson Tressler  25:43  

You can liken that to a kite too, the kite only rises, when it has that tightness of the string against it, as soon as you let that string go. And there’s none of that boundaries, or none of that holding it back, the kite will fall to the ground. But as long as that strings there, controlling it. As you’re saying boundaries, that kite will continue to sour. Exactly.

 

Richard Matthews  26:10  

That’s a good metaphor. I like that. I might steal it and use it later. You can use that, go ahead. So I want to talk a little bit about your superpowers, every iconic hero has superpowers, whether that’s a fancy flying suit made by a genius intellect, or the ability to call down Thunder from the sky, or maybe even super strength. In the real world heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a skill or a set of skills that either you were born with redeveloped over your life, that really helps you to help other people slay their villains, how to help them come out on top in their journeys. And it’s probably a skill that ties all of your other skills together. It’s one of those ones sort of like a foundational thing that makes everything else what it is. So with that sort of framing, what do you think your superpower is?

 

Nelson Tressler  26:53  

You know what, I’ve always had a long term vision. I’ve always looked at what my choices Today, were going to affect me in the future. And probably a lot of that was because of the childhood that I was raised in and realizing how bad it was, and just hoping for better futures. And what I think a lot of people need to realize is, especially in the day and age we’re living now is everybody wants that instant gratification. They want to be happy today, and they want that joy today. And they want you today, today, they want to be rich today, they want that great relationship today. But what you realize is in order to get that. As I said here, 20 years after graduating from college, this is where I eventually wanted to end up, I did set a goal to be done with commercial real estate, 20 years, and I was and seeing that long term vision and being willing to kind of pay that price in advance. And understanding that’s how success works, is you have to pay for it in advance before you get it. It doesn’t just happen. I’ve always realized that I always knew I had to put the work in. And I always knew that if I worked hard enough and long enough that the success would come. And I think that’s probably my superpower is just realizing that, if you work hard enough and long enough that things will eventually happen for you.

 

Richard Matthews  28:33  

And a mentor when I was younger, tell me that we tend to vastly overestimate what we can accomplish in a year, and vastly underestimate what we can accomplish in 10.

 

Nelson Tressler  28:46  

Yep. I love that quote.

 

Richard Matthews  28:49  

And I’ve, I’ve realized that I’ve started to look at my life and longer term things because of that, and it’s how I’ve accomplished the things that I’ve accomplished over time is you realize 10 years is all it takes to become world class. Whatever it is, you want to become world class at, if you’re willing to put in the effort for it. And 10 years also isn’t that long of a time. And people think it is they’re like, I want it to happen in a year. Like I want to be there in a year and you’re just not going to get there. And then people switch they change gears, right? I didn’t make it to world class or I didn’t make it to success in a year. So they switch gears and start over. And if you do that for 10 years, and you’re in the same place you were 10 years ago.

 

Nelson Tressler  29:35  

I listened to Jim Rohn this morning, and he was talking about the two keys to success is patience and persistence. And I mean, you just kind of hit the nail on the head you have to be patient to get there. But I mean, here we are in 2020 right. We just started a new decade and what a way to start a new decade right, geez. But at the beginning of the year before all this happened. You realize, like, think back 10 years ago, think back to 2010. And I think a lot of people kind of hit this decade and they’re like, they either thought they would be further along, or they haven’t done a lot of the things that they would have loved to do. And guess what 2030 will be here before we know it, and another decade will tick by, and if we’re not very deliberate with our lives, and really going after him and living life with purpose, another decade will come and go, and the results that you got last decade, if you weren’t happy with them, if you keep doing the same thing, you’re going to be just as unhappy with the next decade that comes.

 

Richard Matthews  30:45  

It’s an incredible thing to think about. Because, 10 years ago my son was one, my wife and I were living in a tiny four Plex apartment with neighbors that were making all kinds of noise and, a drug dealer on one side of us. And we would make the choice between, which one of us would eat with the kid today, cuz we didn’t have enough money to feed all three of us. And now we’re traveling the country with four kids and with a successful business, and I’m well known in my industry and that kind of stuff. And a lot of that comes from just persistence, that persistence, and patience that you just mentioned.

 

Nelson Tressler  31:22  

And that’s what we need to realize, too, is if we want something different, we have to do something different. I think so many people and another great thing that is your past, your present doesn’t necessarily, you’re not always going to be who you are today, and you start taking those small little steps and you start setting goals, and you start working on yourself and becoming, that superhero, that lives inside of each one of us. I mean, I love thinking about the potential in people. And that’s what really gets me fired up is just the potential that lives in each one of us. And no matter where you’re at in your life, you might not see other people might not see it, now that I’ve written this book, I’ve had the opportunity. Some of my teachers have reached out to me in first grade, and all that throughout, and they’re like, wow, we are so proud of you. But I remember those teachers didn’t necessarily see that potential back then. Because I didn’t become maybe that person that what I was back then. And as soon as I started working on myself, and trying to become that better version of myself, that’s when my goals started to come to fruition.

 

Richard Matthews  32:46  

Absolutely. And it’s a difficult thing too, to be able to see potential not a lot of people can and so in your life skills, learning how to cultivate that muscle of being able to see potential, both in yourself and the people that are around you is a valuable skill.

 

Nelson Tressler  33:03  

Yeah, I think it might sound kind of egotistical, but I think you have to be your own hero. I think you really need to love yourself and be the hero that lives inside of you. And as soon as you start realizing that potential inside of you, and how much you have to offer the world, and you start believing in yourself, that’s when things will start to to change for you.

 

Richard Matthews  33:34  

Absolutely. So my next question for you then it’s about your fatal flaw. Every superhero has their fatal flaw, whether that’s Superman, who has kryptonite, or wonder woman who can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad, you probably have a flaw that’s held you back in your business and entrepreneurial career, something that you struggled with, for me, it was things like perfectionism that kept me from shipping. Like, I wanted to get something perfect. So I’ve never actually bring it to market or lack of self care, which I let my clients walk all over me for years. And maybe something like being a visionary and not having the discipline to actually implement which probably doesn’t sound like yours with all the goal setting stuff. But those are some of the things I struggled with as I became a better entrepreneur. So I think more important in the fall, though, is how have you worked to overcome it or rectify it so that other people in our audience might learn a little bit from your experience?

 

Nelson Tressler  34:26  

I think probably my flaw is the shiny object syndrome. I always see that next shiny thing and that’s kind of led me. At one time, I was writing a book and developing a commercial real estate property and running a chain of children’s pet resorts, and being a commercial. It was kind of that shiny object. Like I just didn’t really focus on one thing, and because of that, I really couldn’t put my own into it. And I was doing everything just okay. And that’s one of the things that I’m trying to work on right now. And really put all of my energy and my effort. And the focus is one of those things that I realized will make a huge difference. It’s like the sun, the sun is warm. But when you put a magnifying glass and you focus that sun on a piece of paper, it’ll actually start it on fire. And I believe that’s exactly what we can do when we start to really focus on our dreams and our goals. And we don’t have that shiny object syndrome to where we’re bouncing to the next best thing, or the next thing that kind of catches our attention when we put on those blinders, and really focus and understand what our goals are and what we want to accomplish. And then we put all of our efforts into that, that’s when great things start to happen. And that’s one of the things I’ve struggled with my whole life.

 

Richard Matthews  35:57  

Yeah, totally makes sense. And it’s something that I have been getting better at over the last year or so with my business and learning how to focus on Hey, like, what’s the one thing that’s gonna help me get to where I want to go next. And so I’ve got the one business that I’m focusing on, and that’s got scalable stuff. And it’s difficult to make that transition from focusing on lots of things to focusing on one thing, especially when like you need the revenue to grow. So you’re like, I have to say no to some revenue opportunities in order to focus on this one thing, and that’s a difficult choice to make, for entrepreneurs.

 

Nelson Tressler  36:34  

And that’s one of the chapters in my book, The unlucky sperm club is addition by subtraction. And a lot of times when you’re out there striving, to reach goals, and to have more in your life, I mean, you want more you want to do more you want to see more. And a lot of times, what you don’t realize is, in order to do that, you have to get rid of some things. So you know, whether that be negative people, whether that be other distractions, but what we realize is sometimes, if we subtract things out of our lives, that’s how we’re going to gain things. So addition by subtraction is something that we kind of got to take a step back and see what do we need to get rid of maybe, to get what we want?

 

Richard Matthews  37:19  

So I think that sort of leads me into my next question for you, which is your common enemy. Every superhero has an arch nemesis. It’s a thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world. And in the world of business, it takes on a lot of forms, but generally, we’re putting it in terms of your clients or your audience, the people that you’re speaking to in your business, and it’s a mindset or a flaw that you constantly have to fight against. Something that if you had your magic wand, and you could just bop the head of every reader picks up your book on the head, and just get rid of it immediately. So that they get better faster results. What would that common enemy be for you and your current business?

 

Nelson Tressler  38:01  

I think one of the things that I got smarter really helps people with is sticking with their goals. And we kind of talked about this is we don’t necessarily have a knowledge problem when it comes to achieving our goals. We have an execution problem, we just don’t follow through with it. And I think that Nemesis is giving up before we achieve our goals and losing focus and not moving forward. And I think, I always think about that one story of the guy who was digging a mine in Colorado, and he dug for about six months and never ended up hitting anything and decided, this isn’t for me, I’m going to head back to wherever he went and he sold his claim for next to nothing. And the next guy that came in there and started to Dig Dug like three feet and ended up hitting the biggest strike ever in Colorado and I think there’s so many people out there that fall short where there are a few choices away from actually finally achieving their goal or maybe that next big milestone that would keep them going is just keep going just don’t quit and stay focused on your dreams and goals they’re worth it.

 

Richard Matthews  39:24  

One of my favorite quotes of Winston Churchill but it’s never ever ever ever, ever ever give up. And I don’t know how many Evers there are in his never ever give up thing but the idea is you have to keep going that failure is a stepping stone to greatness is one of the things I say. You say to my clients in my staff and my kids is that failure only happens when you give up. And really nowadays there’s no competition for someone who has the persistence to keep going. Because most people give up. Most people have that shiny object syndrome, where they’re changing their focus and stuff like that. And when you have the ability to keep going and keep pushing and keep striving, there’s, there’s no competition for people like that.

 

Nelson Tressler  40:18  

And I mean, those are the people that we hear about, the people that keep going are the people who didn’t quit, and I love reading biographies and just seeing the struggles and the trials that all these successful people have done. And a lot of times people look at them and think that they’re an overnight success, or they had it easy, but when you dig down, there’s so much trials and heartaches and times where they could have given up or maybe even should have given up, but they didn’t, and then there’s those people out there that you’ve never heard of. And the reason that you haven’t heard those people is they quit, they didn’t follow through with their dreams and their goals, and you won’t hear about them and who knows what they would have invented or accomplished, that would have not only to change their life, but you know, maybe change the world.

 

Richard Matthews  41:13  

Absolutely. It’s one of the reasons why we run this show is to get more and more people to understand that entrepreneurs and people who do what we do are the ones that change the world were the ones who make it go round. And the more positive stories we can get out, hopefully, we can inspire more people to do that to take their value, whatever that is, and get it out to the world.

 

Nelson Tressler  41:36  

Yeah, and that’s kind of our statement at the I got smarter as we want to change the world, one person and one inspiring goal at a time. And the way that we’re going to do that is we want to change the world but we want to change the person’s world who is seeking that goal and that’s how we’re going to change the entire world is by changing their world.

 

Richard Matthews  42:01  

And I think that ties right into my next question, which is your driving force. The flip side of your common enemy, your driving force, and just like Spider Man fights to save New York or, Batman save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. What is it that you guys are fighting for at I got smarter?

 

Nelson Tressler  42:19  

I want to make a difference in the world, I want to make it a difference in people’s lives. I want to give them the inspiration and the hope and the knowledge that they can live,  their dreams, they can fulfill their goals, no matter what circumstances either they were born in, or what circumstances they find themselves in now, that they don’t have to be a victim of those circumstances that they can be a product of their choices. And, I believe in the law of abundance, there is more than enough success out there. And I want everybody to go out and get their part of it. And the more people who are successful, the more people who accomplish their inspiring goals, the better world that we’re all going to live in. So it’s a win-win situation.

 

Richard Matthews  43:10  

Absolutely. One of the things that always cracks me up about people who are worried about things like competition is worried about the finite resources of the world as I expected. It’s like if you ever like looked at the restaurant industry? Like they have a word that they use in the restaurant industry called Coopetition. Where like there’s a reason why you find places where all the restaurants will come together? Is because the more of them are there competing, the better they all do. And that applies to a lot of industries, and to a lot of business because there really isn’t some limited amount of resources and abundance that we have to you know, Slice the Pie and share. Right, we create, we make more pie.

 

Nelson Tressler  43:56  

Exactly. And I think a lot of people struggle with having that scarcity mindset is that if somebody else is successful out there if somebody else is doing well, somehow, some way they feel like that, there’s less out there for them. And they begrudge that, and that mindset is a killer to a lot of people. 

 

Richard Matthews  44:19  

And the flip side of that is people who are successful or who are working on becoming successful, a lot of times feel like they’re taking from someone else instead of creating new and then self sabotage. And that’s a hard thing to deal with as well. Is learning how profit and creation, adds to abundance. It doesn’t subtract from it.

 

Nelson Tressler  44:41  

Yeah, I agree. 100%. And look where we are today, and then just go back 20 years ago, and look at everything that the internet has done. And we couldn’t even have imagined this and it’s not like there’s not enough opportunity out there for people, there’s more opportunity now than then there ever has been. So I mean, we live in a universe of abundance. And there is always enough, success out there to go around for anybody who’s willing to go after it and work for it.

 

Richard Matthews  45:16  

Yeah, cracks me up. Because 20 years ago, I just turned 35 the other day. So I was 15. And I remember at 15 we were using AOL Instant Messenger to chat with our friends. That was like the new thing. And I remember specifically having conversations talking with my friends about how cool it would be, if you could, like get on video and talk to each other. Right? Like, Mel, her whole life is based on video chats. And it’s just a standard operating procedure. And everyone has a, I remember I had to build a computer from scratch, to get a computer and it was like this big thing, now everyone carries around a computer in their pocket, that’s like, way more powerful than what I had back then.

 

Nelson Tressler  46:01  

Well, and you know, what, that’s a great thing to think about. Because I think a lot of people in their lives right now can’t even envision living the type of life that they want to live. And you look back when you were 15 years ago, or whatever, look how different life can be. And that’s what people need to realize is, just because your life is the way that it is today, that’s not the way it always has to be. And be patient, be persistent, make those choices that are going to get you there, and eventually, you’ll get there. I mean, I think we’re all living in a world that we couldn’t have imagined even a year ago, now, you know, with everything that’s going on. So that’s possible, and each one of our lives towards the good and the betterment of where we want to be as well.

 

Richard Matthews  46:52  

So I want to talk about something a little more practical, I call this the hero’s tool belt. And just like every superhero has a tool belt with awesome gadgets like batarangs, or web slingers, or laser eyes, or magical hammers that call down Thunder from the sky. I want to talk about one or two tools that you use in your business every day that you couldn’t live without could be anything from your notepad to your calendar, to your marketing tools, something you use to actually deliver your product and services. Something you think is essential to getting the job done on a daily basis could even be the app that you’ve built.

 

Nelson Tressler  47:23  

I was gonna go there, I was gonna throw this selfish plug in there but I truly believe I mean, the I got smarter app helps me plan my day. It helps me stay accountable. It really gets me fired up.

 

Richard Matthews  47:39  

It’s really meta to build I got smarter to use I got smarter to build I got smarter.

 

Nelson Tressler  47:44  

Yeah, exactly. And I got smarter is an acronym, each one of those letters means something, and we teach that, with the eye, being the individual and working on that, but, using this app to really plan out my day and to stay accountable to myself to do the things that I said I was going to do. I can’t imagine you get to that point where you can’t imagine doing anything without it. And that app is that for me right now. And, and you know what good people, I mean, that I would have to say, surrounding yourself with good people. I’ve had that ability, my entire business career. I think the only thing that I’m good at is picking good people. Everything else I don’t know where that superpower is but picking good people.

 

Richard Matthews  48:33  

light of experience finding out what bad people are like,

 

Nelson Tressler  48:37  

And picking good people and then just letting them do their thing is, is another thing that I think everybody should have in their superhero tool belt.

 

Richard Matthews  48:48  

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And I look forward to playing around with I got smarter a little bit myself and maybe helping me accomplish my goals. I’ll keep you up on that as  I use it. Awesome. 

 

Richard Matthews  48:58  

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Richard Matthews  50:36  

My next question for you is about your own personal heroes. Right? So every hero has their mentors. Frodo had Gandalf, Luke had Obi Wan, Robert Kiyosaki had his rich dad, Spider Man even had his Uncle Ben. So who were some of your heroes? Were they real life mentors, speakers or authors? Maybe peers who were just a couple of years ahead of you? And how important were they to what you’ve accomplished over the last, you know, 20 years?

 

Nelson Tressler  50:59  

I think one of my heroes goes back to my youth, I got placed into the big brother Big Sister program. And at a time in my life, where I didn’t really have that contrast of the lifestyle that I was living, that there was anything different out there. And I got a big brother. His name was Chuck and his wife, Mary, and they kind of gave me that contrast of, hey, life can be this way. And it showed me that there were different things out there that life didn’t have to be that way. So definitely, he helped me kind of go in a different direction he ended up, he had gone in the Navy on the GI Bill. And I eventually went to the air force on the GI Bill to finish college. And so he made a huge difference in my life. And then also not my first step dad, but my mom eventually married after my, my first stepdad was killed. And she married a man who couldn’t have been any more different than him, ended up coming in and raising, my brothers as if they were his own. And just treated my mom like the Queen that she was, and now she’s living a totally different life than what she lived back then. So those two, those two people had made a huge influence in my life.

 

Richard Matthews  52:24  

Yeah, that’s amazing. I’ve considered joining the big brother, program myself. But it’s hard to do when you’re traveling around and doing what we do. So maybe someday when we settle down, but I love that program. Love the idea, because it’s one of those things that I just culturally, I wish I wish we could figure out a way to have more father figures for young men and young women, because it would, I think it would dramatically change our world for the better.

 

Nelson Tressler  52:54  

It sure changed my world. So yeah, I agree 100%.

 

Richard Matthews  52:59  

So I want to talk about one. One last thing here, which is your guiding principles And it’s one of the things that makes heroes heroic is that they live by a code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he only ever brings them to Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, when I talk about the top one or two principles you use regularly in your life, maybe something you wish you knew when you first start out on your own hero’s journey.

 

Nelson Tressler  53:24  

One thing I think that has helped me is to try to always over deliver, I mean, in commercial real estate, and in the businesses that I ran, we always tried to over deliver for the value that we were doing. And I think people really appreciate that. And just always putting the customer first. I mean, that’s the reason that you’re doing any business that you’re doing is to help the customer. So have the customer in mind, don’t worry about what’s in it for you. I mean, everything has to work for the business to succeed, but it will work for the business to succeed whenever you put the customer first, and you over deliver on that value that you’re providing for them.

 

Richard Matthews  54:13  

Yeah, one of the ways that I sort of use that principle in my business is I say, give first and give till it hurts. And then it comes back around.

 

Nelson Tressler  54:22  

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  54:24  

And that’s the way I try to run everything we do for our clients and the stuff that we do in our business. And it’s basically it’s a just a method methodology behind over delivering under promise over deliver. And it’s much easier to run your business that way and to get referrals and to grow. Then if you’re over promising and under delivering. Absolutely. Absolutely. So cool. Well, that is basically a wrap on our interview, but I do finish every interview with a simple challenge I call the hero’s challenge. And we do this is a selfish thing really to hopefully find access to stories I might never find on my own. So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? first names are fine, and why do you think they should come to share their story on our show? First person that comes to mind for you?

 

Nelson Tressler  55:20  

My partner, Austin, he’s got a great story. He is probably one of the most customer service oriented people I’ve ever come in contact with, I wrote about some of his adventures in the pet resorts in my book, and how he overcame some drastic struggles in that business. But yeah, I think he would be great on here. And he’s got some great stories and just a different way of looking at things. And again, just surrounding myself with great people. And I think he’s one of them.

 

Richard Matthews  55:59  

Awesome. I will reach out afterwards to see if we can get him on the show. So in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people at the end who are cheering clapping for the heroes and the work that they’ve done. So as we close are analogous to that is where, where can people find you if they want your help in the future? Where can I light up the bat signal, so to speak? And more importantly, who are the right types of people sort of reach out? And maybe pick up your book or, or pick up your app and that kind of stuff?

 

Nelson Tressler  56:30  

You can go to nelsontressler.com and you can find the app there. You can also go find the app on the app store at I got smarter all one word. My book is on Amazon. So just type in the unlucky sperm club. And it’ll be there. But it’s also at Nelson Tressler.com, and anybody who wants to live to their potential. In the app, I’ve seen the app help people who’ve never ever been able to stick to a goal and accomplish it, have great success, and be able to finally do that. And then I’ve also seen people who’ve, you know, feel like they have this goal thing pretty well under wraps and then use the I got smarter program and just take their goal achievement to a different level. So it’s anybody out there that wants to live a better, more fulfilling life and really live life with purpose.

 

Richard Matthews  57:27  

Absolutely. Thank you very much for coming to the show today. It’s been excellent having you here, Nelson. So I guess as we send off, do you have any final words of wisdom for my audience before I hit this stop record button?

 

Nelson Tressler  57:43  

Yeah, do it now. I mean, if you felt inspired if you have that little voice in the back of your head, do it now. Don’t wait, for next week to start. Don’t wait till Monday or New Year’s or whatever, are the arbitrary date you’re putting in your mind, move forward now and do what you can time is our greatest resource, and we need to use every second of it to live the life that we want to live.

 

Richard Matthews  58:08  

And you know, we’re not guaranteed tomorrow, and I tell people all the time, my plan is to get into the grave. So yep. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on today Nelson.

 

Nelson Tressler  58:19  

Alright. appreciate you having me Richard.