Entrepreneur Intel

Being the best version of yourself applies not only to business, but your personal and family life as well. Our guest this week is someone who helps entrepreneurs achieve a better life that’s possible for them and those around them. Joining the show this week is Owner of MKD Wealth Coaches, Joe Mackey!

Joe joins Host Wes Mathews to share why grit and determination are the most crucial skills for any entrepreneur. Joe also explains the difference between offering help and taking action, how to set up a self-sustaining business, and the value of spending time with potential customers. 
 
Takeaways:
  • The most important attributes for entrepreneurs to have are grit and determination. Success is hard to get, and requires you to do the difficult things that many others don’t want to do. 
  • Knowing your target market goes beyond just the target industry or similar firmographics. Considering who you enjoy working with, the motivations of customers, and their personal attributes allows you to have stronger bonds with your customers. 
  • While family office services are typically reserved for people with upwards of a few hundred million dollars, the benefits can be felt starting at $20 million. Having a firm that manages your finances 
  • Whether it’s disease or natural disaster, crises cause people to worry about their financial investments. When challenging times arise, the best thing you can do is communicate with your clients and help instill a sense of ease in them. 
  • While entrepreneurs are often the driving force behind sales for their organizations, it’s crucial to create a “self-sustaining” business. By allowing your business to run without depending on your presence, you allow your business to thrive even if you need a break.
  • While it may seem counterintuitive, spending time in informal meetings with potential clients is an effective way to build relationships. Strong relationships create strong business, but require a slow building of trust. 
  • There is a difference between offering support and taking action. Rather than simply offering condolences or well wishes when something bad happens to a client, be present and figure out actionable ways you can help them through tough times. 


Quote of the Show:
  • “We want to free them up to be the best version of themselves they were created to be as an entrepreneur, as a spouse, as a parent.” - Joe Mackey


Links:


Ways to Tune In:

Creators & Guests

Host
Wes Mathews
KC
Producer
Kyle Conover

What is Entrepreneur Intel?

Welcome to Entrepreneur Intel, a podcast where we discuss the most important strategies for success from amazing entrepreneurs. Host Wes Mathews sits down with business owners to learn about how they got started running their own business, what helped them succeed and the biggest lessons they learned along the way.

Be sure to catch new episodes every Thursday morning, and to make sure you never miss out on any insights, don’t forget to subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, You Tube or wherever you get your podcasts.

This show is sponsored by Stealth Consulting, your Fractional CMO. Stealth provides the roadmap and accountability to reach your business and marketing goals. Learn more at https://stealthconsulting.com/

Wes: I am super excited today, uh, for our guest, Mr. Joe Mackey. Uh, he is someone who helps entrepreneurs achieve a better life. That's possible for them and those around them. Uh, he believes that a successful business needs more than just a strong bottom line, and he also believes that entrepreneurs change the world.

Very passionate about entrepreneurship. Uh, he's served and is serving on the board of EO Detroit. He is the owner of MKD wealth coach, uh, Joe Mackey. Thanks so much for being here, Joe.

Joe Mackey: Yeah. Hey Wes, thanks for having me. Super excited, uh, to spend this time with you.

Wes: Well, awesome. Well, Hey, I got to ask you this question before we dive in. Your company currently has 12 employees and you've been doing this now, this entrepreneurship thing for about 22 years. What's the most important lesson you've learned this far on your journey?

Joe Mackey: Yeah, that's a great question. And the answer to that is really, I think over the course of my whole life and it's grit, determination. Uh, the good stuff is hard to get. It requires doing things that other people aren't willing to do. And I've noticed that applies to all areas of my life. I grew up in somewhat tumultuous and difficult, circumstances.

And it was always that persevering over time and being willing to work harder than other people that got me, to where I wanted to be.

Wes: So, so going back on that. So a lot of guests I have on the show, grit, perseverance, like that can, I see a common theme amongst entrepreneurs, uh, right, but kind of go back, back for you, um, like seeing that or how much you want to touch on that. I want to start there, but then also segue how you got into your.

Line of work as an entrepreneur. Uh, so yeah, talk about like, just, just kind of the beginning in terms of, you know, what made, what made you go down the path of, uh, to be an entrepreneur?

Joe Mackey: It's interesting. Uh, I'd have to go back to high school and my brother who's a year and a half older than me was a delivery driver at a pizza place. I got my driver's license. He got me a job. My first kind of real job, I'd done other things, uh, for kind of cash around town, but this was my first regular real job.

And when I started working there, I noticed things and did things differently and gave ideas to the owner. It was a small pizza place in a, in a small town. So it was a 16 years old to have an impact in an organization. And, uh, Sonny Brinkman, the owner of Late Night Pizza in Greenfield, Indiana started to say, you know, Hey, I want to give you more responsibility.

And he would ask me questions about things. And I just got involved in the business with him. And he ended up, uh, promoting me to, uh, an assistant manager. And then I was 17, 18 years old and he'd leave me. On a Friday night, a busy Friday night running the whole show while he'd go home and do whatever he did, you know, and I'd settle all the books at two in the morning.

I'd bring him to his house with the cash and the reconcile and all that. So that was a, an experience for me where I had entrepreneurial opportunity, but I really didn't know what an entrepreneur was. I didn't know the difference. I was just growing up in a small town. In a difficult circumstance and knew I wanted to get out of there.

So I decided to go to college, uh, went to Indiana university, graduated and started working in the food service distribution business. So most people are familiar with Cisco food service. They're the big giant in that industry. So doing that out of college in Indianapolis and they, uh, started promoting me and saying, Hey, if you want to move up, you got to move around.

They moved me up here to Detroit back in, uh, early 97. Yeah, I think it was Super Bowl weekend, 1997. And I was here to do some special projects and one thing led to another. I met my wife, marrying her was marrying Michigan and we started having children. And I got to this point now I'm in my early thirties.

And I start to realize that being in corporate America and a fortune 500 company and climbing that ladder was exactly what I don't want to do with the rest of my life. I did not like the politics. Uh, I didn't like the coaching and mentoring that I was getting on how I had to play the game better versus my primary drive was to get shit done.

You know, I was very, very focused and driven and they loved me. And I. Uh, didn't like them at all. And I say, not them, the people, them, the environment of a big corporation and what it took to be successful. So on a Friday afternoon, Uh, my wife was pregnant with our second child. She had, uh, left her career as an engineer and was at home, going to stay home and raise the kids.

And I made a decision driving from Canton, Michigan to Royal Oak, Michigan, that I was going to make a change. And I reflected back on my life and thought, I think I'm an entrepreneur, was really successful. With the more freedom I had, the more, the more freedom I had, the happier I was and the more successful I was.

So by the time I got home, I told her and she said, well, what are you going to do? I said, I have no idea. So I went on a soul searching journey where I started, uh, journaling and quiet time and, uh, started reaching out to people that I just had a lot of respect for and asking them this question of like, you know, what is entrepreneurship?

And do you think I am an entrepreneur? And could I be an entrepreneur? And at the time with, with a, uh, you know, a family and, and, and not a lot of finances, I couldn't go out and buy something. I thought, you know, I'll go out and buy a business. So I didn't have the resources to do that. Well, around that time, three different people I knew well that were in the financial services business said to me, you should think about what, doing what I do.

It's very entrepreneurial and the startup costs are low and I think you'd be good at it and I think you'd like it. And all three of those people at the time were at large corporations in the financial services industry. And I had an interesting experience where I fell in love with the opportunity, but I also realized I don't want to go be at a big corporation.

So then I had a friend of mine introduced me to some guys that owned, uh, in our world, what's called an RIA firm or a registered investment advisor, an independent business. And I went and met with them and I immediately knew, I said, this is exactly. What I want to do, how I want to do it. And at 32 years old, I went from a corporate job with a really nice base salary and benefits and bonus.

And I was just getting ready to be promoted into the first rung of leadership where you get all the stock options and all that kind of stuff. And I went to zero and I didn't go work for a big company. I didn't get a salary. I didn't get any of that. I started out, uh, with nothing, with a small independent firm and started digging a financial, you know, planning practice, uh, out of the ground.

22 years ago in May, the week my, uh, second child was born.

Wes: How scary is that originally? Right. So I've talked to a handful of people now, many people that have gone down the corporate path. Right. So in my simple brain, it's corporate or entrepreneur. And there's always like this breaking point. If somebody is working for a corporate organization where like, they just can't tolerate it anymore, but that's super scary, right?

Like you're 32, you're, you're young. Your wife just left her job as an engineer. She's pregnant. You're leaving this cushy, you know, salary. And you just, like, take that leap. How much of, like, your journaling, or just taking that time Like, how long did that take, and like, what really kinda pushed you over that?

It's super scary to think about, right?

Joe Mackey: I think a couple of things were at play. Number one, there was a sense in, a sense in which it was choosing me. Like I, I couldn't not do it. The energy inside of me was so powerful. And there was, uh, a big sense of like, if I go one more level up in the company and I go into that realm of stock options, uh, called long term incentives and play it out over time.

It's hard to then get out, right? Cause now you have so much compensation tied up and staying with the corporation and they just keep compounding that over time, which, you know, good for them. Right. That's a smart strategy, uh, to keep people that you want in the organization. And, and so I had that pushing me away, knowing that if I went up one more level, I'd be miserable for the rest of my life, but couldn't get out financially.

I was like, if I'm going to get out, I got to do it now. And, uh, I, I think I was born an entrepreneur. I just didn't grow up in an environment where there was anybody in my life who ever really You know, said to me, Joe, you're an entrepreneur. You should think about, and what about, and, you know, that type of stuff.

And when my 15 year old sophomore in high school son thinks maybe he's an entrepreneur, well, guess what? I'm doing all kinds of fun stuff with him. He's got a mowing business in our neighborhood and we're doing expenses and revenue, and he's looking at, uh, possibly going to Indiana University, Kelly School of Business and majoring in entrepreneurship.

You know, so that the extreme difference of the way I grew up and the way someone like him gets to grow up. And I know you, the same thing. If any of your kids smell like an entrepreneur at all, you're going to get all in and helping them figure that out. But when you were growing up, I don't know if anybody

Wes: No.

Joe Mackey: helped you

Wes: super, super taboo. I always just thought something was wrong with me, or I was just so, so dumb. Just cause I didn't, I didn't conform with the rest of them, but Yeah, you're the only guy I know I think that has more kids than me, so you have six kids. Right. I have five. Um, so starting off in, in the, uh, uh, RIA, were you dealing with like consumers money or like, were you always, cause I know now, and maybe clarify, you only work with entrepreneurs, correct?

Joe Mackey: Yeah. Our target market is, so yeah, I'd tell you that story. So 22 years ago when I started, it was, uh, anybody and everybody, you know, kind of a traditional financial services, financial planning practice. I made a list of 400 people that I knew, and I called every single one of them. Wes, we didn't know each other back then, but if we did 22 years ago, Hey, Wes, how you doing, man?

Great catching up with you. Do you mind get together, buy a cup of coffee, share everything, the type of work that I'm doing to see if I could be a resource for you. I said that 400 times. And we would get together and I would say, Hey, Wes, not, you know, assuming you have any need for my services, but here's the way that we help people.

And then I would ask you if you knew anybody, you know, you thought I could help, blah, blah, blah. So that turned into, uh, a lot of opportunity in a, in a, in a financial services practice. Now, Fast forward to, uh, January 1st, 2007, where I launched my own RIA with another guy. So I was a part of this RIA Emerson Dankovich.

And then, uh, that was, uh, for five years and then 07, launched my own. And a year after that, uh, a friend of mine, uh, gave me a book. And said, you should read this book. And if you want to meet the guy who wrote it, I can introduce you to him. I think, I think you'd really, really appreciate this. And the book was Traction and the guy's name was Gino Wickman.

So this is back in, uh, late 07, early 08. And before Gino was world famous and, and you know, the OS process had blown up so big. So I always text Gino on January 24th every year because it was, uh, 16 years ago, this, this January 24th where we started, had our first EOS session with Gino. And he asked the question, what is your target market?

And. Back then it was like, I don't know, humans, uh, you know, people, people with money, anybody with any money. So Gino started really pushing on me to carefully think about who I enjoyed working with the most, who I got the most excited about that type of stuff. And realized very quickly when I looked at all my clients, there was a number of them that were entrepreneurs.

That when we met, sparks would fly and we'd get excited. And we were doing a lot of really interesting things about leaning into this place where their business, their personal and their financial life come together. So it was back then, 16 years ago, working with Gino, uh, for four years implementing EOS, that we decided our target market was entrepreneurs.

And so we have all these years been, uh, evolving the business around that, that we wake up today and we realize we have, um, uh, you know, what we call a family office for entrepreneurs with 20 clients that are between 20 and a hundred million of net worth. And we're taking family office services that are typically reserved for people in the hundreds of millions to the billions.

And we're bringing those down in somewhat of a kind of a fractional sense or democratizing those services and making them available. I say why 20 million to a hundred million as well. Over 20 million is where you start to have two different issues. Number one, you probably have accumulated more wealth than you're going to use for yourself in your own lifetime.

So how are you going to have an impact? With the excess wealth on family, philanthropy, your community, and we're going to, we help people set a purpose, cause, passion, mission, vision, whatever it is that resonates with you, core values and goals. And then also, uh, over 20 million, you start to run into estate tax issues.

Uh, right now it's 26 million. That's going to come down, uh, in a couple of years and then who knows what it'll be after that. But you have to do, you don't have to do, most people at that level prefer to do. Some more, uh, creative planning to try to avoid protecting the legacy they want to leave and not giving a large share of their estate, uh, to the government.

So that's our whole family office for entrepreneurs, 20 clients. Our goal over the next seven years is to grow that to 50 clients, to grow our team, uh, from 12 to 25. We also still have about 150 ish clients that we consider financial planning clients that we love and help and do great work with, and we still get referrals, uh, you know, with that.

And we will accept people and work with them that have at least a million dollars of assets under management. And we're providing tremendous value to them. Uh, our, when we reach in our pocket and take out money to do marketing, it's all around the family office for entrepreneurs. And growing that business, knowing that's where our, our kind of our core passion is, I believe entrepreneurs change the world for good and I want to help them as much as I can in their personal and the intersection of their personal, financial and business life.

And ultimately what we want to do, I think the main thing we want to do is we want to reach inside every entrepreneur's brain. And take away all of their thinking, worrying, and wondering about their wealth or their legacy. We want to take all that away to free them up to be the best version of themselves.

They were created to be as an entrepreneur, as a spouse, as a parent, as a community leader, a board member for a nonprofit, their passion about a mentor, uh, all those types of things that they like and are great at.

Wes: Yeah, from my perspective, like going back on the, on the Gino and the EOS. Like your model for financial health or success is, is very similar in the sense of like EOS for your financial health. I mean, really making somebody sit down and go through the why, where do they see themselves in 10 years and ask all those really difficult questions.

Um, kind of like working on the business versus in the business. So like you get busy carting six kids around the sports, doing all these things, and you tend to forget about all of these things, but you said something really important that I want to highlight that I think is genius. Uh, you mentioned like where you spend your marketing and you've really defined your target market.

And that's where you focus, but you'll also help other people, which I think is really important for entrepreneurs because you can have a target market and be all in on that. That doesn't mean you're only going to serve that market. Um, but I think it's really wise to, to be very specific with those dollars, um, to help grow.

So one thing I want to circle on is, uh, COVID, you know, so, I mean, you're in the financial world. I mean, Stress. I mean, I can't even begin to imagine the emotion and I'm sure there's different emotions at different levels of, of assets, but with the mark, I mean, you started in 2007 with MKD. You had like the Lehman thing in 2008, 2009.

I mean, you had all these different things leading up to COVID. We could probably spend a lot of time talking there, but COVID if we can, because that was the freshest in my mind and like. How do you manage through that? Like you're managing people's wealth and their money. They're looking at you, trusting you with everything.

And the world just gets flipped upside down. I think this is important as an entrepreneur, because this is probably a very difficult thing in many different aspects.

Joe Mackey: Yeah, that's a great question. And the first thing, uh, was a tremendous amount of communication with clients. So bringing our team together and saying in a crisis situation where there's a lot of fear and uncertainty, we want to really lean into that. So that was our first objective is we wrote several.

Uh, you know, I don't call it newsletters, client communications. That's a better, we don't do like a regular newsletter, but this was a time where we did something throughout COVID consistently, we kept writing the clients and even calling clients. And of course we had clients calling us and, and we, we did make some changes in the midst of what was happening to the investments that we managed.

We did not make dramatic changes. I had. A couple of clients that made, they decided to make bigger changes, uh, you know, which was, uh, what we felt was an overreaction, uh, to the situation. But the primary thing we wanted to do was focus on the important, big, long term decisions that we had made and how, uh, you know, sticking with something when it doesn't feel uncomfortable.

is one of the keys to success in a situation like that. So there's dealing with that external client communication, really leaning into the fear and the uncertainty, uh, and increasing everything, uh, communication wise above and beyond what we normally do. And the other thing was internal and just like you and everybody else trying to figure out how to navigate this new world of, uh, the team being virtual.

And, you know, we were an essential business cause we're financial. So one person was able to go to the office, which ended up being me because like you mentioned, I have six children now and they were all at home doing school from home. So me trying to do work from home with my wife and six kids and dogs, uh, in, in needing to have, uh, deep, uh, conversations with people who are potentially trapped in a place of fear and uncertainty, it was not good.

So. I was the one going to the office building in Troy, and it felt like a dystopian future where I would come in and turn on the lights and it would be a week. I wouldn't see anybody else in the whole big building, which was really, really strange. But, uh, you know, we did persevere and as most people know, the market, the bottom dropped out of it for a minute.

And then the government came with bazookas full of liquidity. And flooded the market and, uh, you know, got everything going. And we, we quickly. Ran back up out of that and it turned into a real interesting time of prosperity as so many people, entrepreneurs, were given, uh, multiple government programs to get money to help them through, which some needed and some didn't.

Wes: So clients got through it and they're probably happier on the back end. How did COVID, you know, as an entrepreneur, right? I think a big part of being an entrepreneur, it's, there's a lot of fear and uncertainty, uncertainty as an entrepreneur, right? It seems like when things are good, things come out of left field or like things happen.

How did COVID affect you personally?

Joe Mackey: Yeah. So I, uh, so we get through all that, right. 2020 go into 2021. And I was feeling really, really good. I, uh, work out a lot. I eat predominantly clean. Uh, and I had been exposed to COVID a lot of times and had not gotten it. So I was kind of in this, A little bit of overconfidence, uh, place and felt like I, I couldn't get COVID.

And if I did, it wouldn't be that big a deal. Well, fast forward to July of 2021, my wife and one of my daughters were in Las Vegas for a national dance competition. I pick them up at the airport, hug them, kiss them. They get in the car, drive home the next day. And my daughter says, I can't smell or taste anything.

Well, we didn't know it at the time, but when they were out in Las Vegas, they had picked up the Delta variant, which was very, uh, you know, prominent out there. It was, it was waving through, uh, the West coast. And a couple of days later, I didn't feel good, got sick, ended up having the worst flu of my life for 10 days.

And then the, the fever finally broke. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm good now. You know, I'm out of the weeds. Well, went to bed that night. Woke up in the middle of the night and didn't feel good. Uh, couldn't breathe real well and put one of those little oximeters on my finger, which I didn't even know what that was until a friend had given it to me and said, Hey, you've got COVID, keep an eye on this.

And it said 75%. So my oxygen saturation, my body was 75%, which is if anybody knows anything about that, uh, you should be 98%, uh, to a hundred and 75 was not good. So straight to the hospital. right into ER. And first three days in the hospital, I was very much fighting for my life and could feel there were times I'd be sitting there and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm dying right now.

I could feel life leaving my body and they're throwing everything they had at me with the maximum oxygen and steroids and Remdesivir, which, you know, that probably wasn't helpful. And they wanted to, uh, take me to intensive care unit and ventilate me, intubate me. And I just kept having this really powerful voice inside of me screaming, no, I'm not a doctor.

I don't have any other reason except something inside of me was saying, if I go to ICU, I'll never come out. Like that'll be, that will be the death of me. And what I understand now from talking to doctors is, uh, if I went there and they sedated me, then you're taking away your will to live, live. And it goes back to that thing about grit and perseverance. Even though I could feel my body dying, I had a tremendous desire to live. I had a lot of grit and whenever I would feel like this is the moment I was dying, I would just stop and think to myself, as long as I can think that I'm dying, then I must be alive. Oh, I'm thinking, and then I would kind of play this little game with myself where I just, Meditate on the knowing that I'm alive.

And then if I'm ever not alive, well, then that won't, you know, then I'll be wherever I'm going to go. For me, it's heaven, you know, a belief. And then that'll be great. Right. So as long as I can think I'm alive and that's great. And one day when I'm, or one second, if I'm not, then that's okay too. And they used to make me lay on my stomach like this, uh, for six to eight hours a day.

And cause that would help improve my oxygen. And I used to sit and focus on a string of a bedsheet, you know, and I would say, as long as I could see that little thread, I know I'm alive. And I would feel myself dying. And then I'd go right back, go, Oh, there's that thread. I must be alive. So that was three days.

And then they, uh, said, you know, Hey, you're not getting better. They'd gotten my oxygen saturation up. To about 84 percent and you need to be 88, uh, to be living anything below 88. You're just slowly dying and way below you're fastly dying. So they said, we're not going to sit here and watch you just slowly die.

We're going to sedate you in this room, take you to ICU and, and ventilate you. And again, I said, no, and. came back that afternoon to do it. And my oxygen went from 84 to 88. And I said, Oh, I said, well, we still want to take you, but we'll let you stay if you want to, and just know that if you go backwards at all, we won't be able to save you.

And I said, I don't care. And then for seven more days, I stayed at like 88%. And then I slowly started to climb from there and got, you know, into kind of like the mid to low nineties. I was there 23 days total. They sent me home with an oxygen tank and I was home basically until late January, I started to come out a little bit, November, December, but I really didn't fully engage.

Um, I had probably four days a week, six hours a day in late January, and then slowly ramped up from there, but that was out about a total of six months, uh, from work and life, uh, with COVID. So that was yeah, two and a half years ago.

Wes: well, well, thanks for that share. I mean, so many questions around that. Um, you know, the one thing is, I mean, as an entrepreneur, I mean, how important was your team, right? You're talking about six months out of pocket. Like how do you, what was that experience like, you know, with your team and all that,

Joe Mackey: One of the first Things I did when I finally got fully reengaged and realized that the business had run without me was write a letter to Gina Wickman, who is still a very close friend today and a client. Uh, and I realized that us implementing the EOS process when we did in January of 08 allowed me to be out for six months and the business to run without me.

Uh, my younger partner is our integrator. If you know the EOS language, I'm the visionary. He's the integrator. And man, we are, we are hardcore EOS process followers. We run our business on EOS and we follow it. And that was a really big benefit to being able to be out and have that, uh, work really, really well.

The one negative side of it that we're working really hard on now is me being out for six months created a lag. in new clients, because most of our new clients come from me being out playing in traffic, just being out all the time, you know, as playing golf, being on boards, doing things that I'm passionate about and love and then meeting other people that share those passions.

And as a result of that, getting new clients, well, me being out for six months, about a year after that, we saw, uh, uh, a real dry area. Now, new client activity has recently picked way back up because it's been two years of me out playing in traffic again. And so we're working really hard now on. How do we attract business to MKD that doesn't require my presence?

You know, I want to own a business that benefits from my presence, but doesn't depend on it. And if I'm here, I want it to grow more. If I'm not here, I want it to still be able to grow. It just, it wouldn't grow as much, but it would still grow.

Wes: that's funny. Let Joe go play in traffic. I love

Joe Mackey: Yeah.

Wes: Well, you taught me if I can, and thanks for the share, but I want to share something that you taught me and you talked about. I think we talked before and I was like, you know, what did, you know, what did you learn? And you mentioned something to me that really stood out, which was, you know, as you were going through this, from my perspective, like, I think I text you a bunch.

I was thinking about you, kind of praying for you. You shared something with me that had a huge impact on me. Cause you're like, you know, Wes, there was a lot of people that just, you know, Sent me a message like, Hey, I hope you're doing well to me. It was like two buckets, people that sent that message. And then you were like, well, then there was these people that just like showed up and took action, like brought, you know, did stuff for my kids.

And I was like, Oh, such a huge learning moment for me. But from your perspective, um, share a little bit about that. Cause I think it's super impactful.

Joe Mackey: Yeah. It was a realization that I had never had before and it, it hit me really, really hard. So, you know, I, I would. Back then in July of 2021, I was 51 years old. So I made it 51 years having zero perspective on this. Super, super fortunate to have a lot of loving, kind, wonderful people in my life in multiple categories.

Uh, you know, anywhere from the church that we go to, to the EO group, or Neighborhood friends, kids, school friends, kids, you know, people I grew up with, like there's all these groups and groups and groups of people. And I got so many, uh, text messages from people. Hey, I love you. Uh, praying for you. Uh, how's it going?

And what can I do to help? And I realized when I would get that message, although I, and again, I'm super thankful, like anybody who reached out, that was a gift and that was a blessing and I'm very thankful. The part where it was, what, what can I do to help? Or how can I help? Or please tell me anything really is like, I'm in a physical state of near death and massive COVID brain fog.

I'm in a, you know, trauma state. I can't think at all about anything that anybody could do, let alone be engaged with Jenny, trying to take care of six kids and any needs that she would have. It was, it was, uh, the question was a burden to me. And then I felt uncomfortable if I didn't respond. Um, and, and, and if I did respond, I wouldn't have any idea what to respond.

So I would always just say, thank you. I would never say, Oh, could you please do this? And then, like you said, there was another group I'll use. Uh, you know, kind of my golf group at Ren Run, a couple of guys there took initiative and they said, Hey, Joe's in the hospital. Uh, you know, if COVID doesn't kill him, the hospital food will.

So they made a decision to create a meal train for me and they each took a night. And what they would do is they would go to a local nice restaurant, like really nice restaurant. And like Cruz and Muir or Stony River or Lily Seafood. And then they would buy me dinner. They would ask me what I'd say. Hey, I'm buying you dinner tonight from this restaurant.

It wasn't a question. It was, I am doing this. Pick off the menu. And then they would go buy the dinner and bring it to the hospital. They couldn't come up and see me. Unfortunately, they would have a. You know, somebody from the hospital, bring it up. And so I would have, you know, hospital breakfast, hospital lunch and dinner.

I would have this amazing gourmet meal from a local, really nice restaurant. And that was extremely powerful. Uh, that was one example. Another was we had a, uh, power outage at that. And probably people don't remember, but back in August of 2021 in Royal Oak, there was a big power outage and two different friends that were in the construction business.

Uh, Brian Ellis and Steve Perick brought generators to my house. They didn't ask, do you need it? They just brought them and hooked them up and took care of it. Like made sure they were full of gas and worked with my wife to get them running, keep them running. Like they took action and did those things.

They didn't ask if I needed help with those. And so I now have that commitment that when I have a friend in a difficult situation, I will text them from time to time. Hey Wes, we know I'm thinking about you. I was in my quiet time this morning. I prayed for you and Hey, you know, next Thursday, can I come see you at your, wherever you are, or can I, you know, can we get together for breakfast?

Right. If I just know you're going through a stressful time, I'll ask to spend time with you, or if you're, you know, I have a friend whose wife, uh, was very trapped, she was jogging one morning and she was hit by a car, tragically coma. And, uh, I just asked him like, Hey, can I just come to the hospital and sit with you?

And sit with her and I don't know, I don't need anything. I just want to sit next to you and be with you. And did that many, many times. Not many times, a handful of times with him while staying in touch with him. But I always just, I think, what can I do that I believe would be a, uh, a help to that person without asking them what they need or what can I, because then that becomes a burden trying to answer that.

Wes: Yeah, no, I appreciate the share. And like you said, like you were 51 when I heard it from you, I was like, uh, and then you share the experience about paying attention to the thread and you're getting text messages about like, you know, it's just, it's just a really interesting perspective. But I think it also ties back to what you said from the very, very beginning.

Right. It's grit. And I think as an entrepreneur, right. You're balancing personal family business. A lot of it to me too, is like anticipation, like being. Trying to be a couple steps ahead or like, what would I, you know, put yourself in their shoes? Like if, if you were experiencing that, what would you need?

Right. So, yeah, that was like the best thing I learned during that time. Cause I was like, Yeah, wow, like I'm totally, I've done it so many times in my life. Hey, sorry to hear about this. I hope you're doing well. And then it's like, it's gone, you know? So to me, like the learning is take action and that's probably changed your life.

Well, glad you're here. Um, but I mean, do you, do you kind of feel like, like, what do you take from that experience? I mean, obviously hindsight, right. As a big teacher and you're here, but like, Are you grateful for it? I mean, did it, like, help you pause your, your, like, what, what did you learn, or what was your takeaway from it?

Joe Mackey: Yeah, absolutely for sure. I've had a lot of time, you know, to delay and not only in that when I was in the hospital, I had very severe COVID brain fog. So I, I really couldn't think in the hospital, but all the time at home, you know, when I started to, to regain. Uh, some mental acuity. Uh, I did have a lot of time to just reflect on, you know, my life and the realization that although my family circumstances were difficult growing up between an incredibly loving brother, who's always been one of my closest friends and, you know, we kind of raised each other and then a community of people.

It was always friends, families that loved me and took me in. And then here I am, you know, the COVID thing. And again, friends surround me. And, and love me. And I realized like friends and community have always been my family. And, and I have a tremendous amount of, um, thankfulness for that. Like that's probably friends are my family.

Community is my family, which is a lot of why, um, I've been so driven to give back. I mean, in the midst of owning a small business in the financial services world and having six kids, uh, you, you know, I, it would seem like I wouldn't have a lot of time, but I serve on a couple of. Nonprofit boards, uh, because I, I, I realized that the community is my family and I want to, I want to lean back in to what's been such a gift and a blessing to me when I didn't have one thing at all.

Hardly. I had another thing in a really big, powerful way.

Wes: So that leads into, uh, and one of the, one of the organizations you're involved with is South Oakland Citizens for the Homeless. What's, uh, what's your involvement or what do they do?

Joe Mackey: Yeah. Uh, so. Eight, nine years ago, I got an email from somebody saying, Hey, there's this, uh, homeless shelter that needs socks and underwear. And I don't know why. I don't know how I got on the email distribution list, but I did. And it, it shot right through my chest and hit me so hard because the experience, one of the things I had growing up, uh, that drove me crazy is we were so poor, uh, my socks oftentimes had holes in them.

You can see a picture putting on socks in the morning with holes in them and walking around school all day with your toes sticking through a hole in the sock. It's very uncomfortable. And then seventh and eighth grade, I started playing sports, football, wrestling, a little bit of track. I would take my shoes off and everybody else didn't have holes in their socks.

And I did. So it was an embarrassing thing. My mom would stick a light bulb in the stock and try and sew the whole together, you know, which then would create a blister on my toe. But, um, uh, when I saw that, I realized like, oh man, this is a calling for me to give back to people who are in poverty. So I went to, uh, Sam's Club or whatever, and, and bought huge boxes of socks and underwear and took them and it was South Oakland Citizens for the Homeless.

When I delivered them, I started asking questions. Got real curious about what they do. And then I started getting involved in rallying friends of mine to, uh, provide meals and other clothing, and then that eventually led to an opportunity to join the board as I started to understand more about homelessness and what people don't realize, like in Oakland County, Michigan, there's, uh, at any given time, approximately 3000 homeless people.

You see a couple of people. You know, at the corner of some street or whatever, but there's about 3, 000 floating around and then even more, there's about 300 that are called chronically homeless. So these are the homeless of the homeless, meaning they've been homeless for a long time. They probably always will be homeless.

And South Oakland Citizens Home for the Homeless, we're. Specifically targeting them. So our target market in that scenario or the homeless of the homeless are the most overlooked and underserved people in our society. And we're, uh, trying to have an impact in their lives. Number one, loving them and humanizing them and serving them where they're at.

And then, uh, hopefully transitioning a small number of them on an annual basis out of homelessness. Cause with our population, uh, it's very, very, it would be the most difficult to transition. And so we're in a position now, uh, where, uh, we might be getting a property. Uh, in Royal Oak, where for 20 years, we've been, we've been homeless.

So we've been the homeless, homeless ministry, uh, or nonprofit. And we might be getting a property here real soon, which would be awesome. We have a whole vision for turning that into a community center. We really would be, uh, not only serving them, but helping them with all kinds of services, and we've got a big vision for that.

And so hopefully that'll, that'll come to fruition in the next 30 to 60 days. And then throughout the rest of this year, we'll be. creating, uh, architectural drawings and a vision and funds. And we got some promised money from Oakland County to help and, uh, and then a lot of fundraising.

Wes: Wow. That's great. And again, that's South Oakland Citizens for the Homeless. At the end of this, we're going to get all your contact information so people can contact you. But I kind of want to lighten it up and go back to what you said, just kind of going back on the entrepreneurial path. You'd mentioned a couple of different things.

One is you're a visionary, your partner's the integrator. So translation, like you're the CEO visionary, your partner's the COO integrator, kind of timing the trains, getting stuff done. But you said something that I, that I really love and I kind of want to steal from you, which is, you know, Joe, Joe's going to play in traffic because I think that oftentimes I struggle with it myself in my own company where people are like.

What do you actually do? Or like, you're playing golf. Like that's not work. Like a lot of spouses will say like, how is playing golf work? Right. Um, talk a little bit about that. Cause like you, you know, you, you figured it out or like, is it just, to me, it's all about relationship. And for me, golf is spending time with somebody, a four to five to six hour experience, but talk about like what success looks like to you when, when Joe Mackey's playing in traffic.

Joe Mackey: Yeah. Well, it's getting to know people and you, you mentioned this, you know, uh, golf is a lot of time together. It's also a sport that'll take what's on the inside of you and bring it to the outside,

Wes: Mm hmm.

Joe Mackey: uh, in, in a positive and negative sense, you know, you really, really get to know people, who they are and.

And how they act under stress and how they act when things are going well. And all that happens within one round of golf. And what, what, what would, um, what I've realized over time is the target market that we're pursuing. Uh, they want to get to know somebody over time. They want to, they want to build trust slowly and carefully.

And they want to know who they're going to work with is somebody, uh, that could be a long term fit. And so that me doing things that I enjoy and me serving in ways that I'm passionate about, or other people that would be in our target market are doing those same things. We just get to come alongside each other and we get to know each other.

And it's, you know, not everybody's right for me too. You know, I don't, I don't, uh, I don't want to do business with everybody who fits the, the data points of my target market. There's, there's, um, character things that are important at all. There's fit, you know, just kind of a generalized thing of, you know, can we connect in a way where I can help, uh, you know, or would it be too difficult because we're too different from each other?

So the playing in traffic is, you know, doing things I enjoy doing, uh, serving in ways I'm passionate about and, and come alongside other people. Now, part of what we're also doing now is figuring out or working really hard on trying to discover what are ways we can shorten that cycle because we see that it's typical if I meet somebody new, I typically spend a couple of years, uh, getting to know them before a business opportunity would come up.

How can we take who we are? And how we help people and what we believe and get it out there in a way that, uh, people in our target market can consume it faster. And, and we can shorten that cycle a little bit. So that's to come with like literally brainstorming that right now and hoping to do things maybe by the end of the year, where we bring groups of small groups of entrepreneurs together and lead them through some of our, uh, processes, uh, around creating a vision, setting core values associated with your wealth.

Uh, looking at the team of advisors that surround you and helping you determine if you've got the right people in the right seats using the Jim Collins, uh, you know, so if you've got core values, then you know how to tell if your attorney or CPA, investment advisor, insurance guy, banker, if they're the right person, do they align with your core values?

Uh, or they have a low self interest. So they'll help you, uh, get to your vision and not theirs. And they're in the right seat. Do they have the competency, the capacity to do the job that you're asking them to do? So there's things that we do with our clients, all of our clients that we're thinking about, Hey, what if we did this in group formats with people in our target market and just give them the value and help them.

And some people will go, it's like EOS, right? Some people will take that and self implement and some people will come to us and say, Hey, this is awesome. Now, will you, will you help me implement

Wes: It's great. Sounds like a fun project. I'm sure you'll figure it out.

cause what's interesting is, is going back to that is the visionary, you know, playing in traffic and then you actually experiencing what you went through, but then also the business looking at that saying, Hey, this playing in traffic, it might be hard to quantify on the day to day.

But now we're seeing a lag of, of new business coming through the door, which I think is really important because I think visionaries do need to go play in traffic. And oftentimes it's a very misunderstood, a misunderstood thing because visionaries tend to just beat at their own drum and want, and want to do what they want to do.

And a lot of that's hard for operational people that are like, how do you quantify, put in detail what you're doing day to day? It's like, I can't, you just kind of make it happen. But Joe, you're an inspiration. You know, what you're doing with South Oakland Citizens for the Homeless, and what you're doing in your business, your story. How can people contact you? I know that there's gonna be people that want to get involved with the homeless organization. And then also, potentially, at MKD. What's the easiest way for people to contact you?

Joe Mackey: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, text me or call me, uh, 248 207 9735. That's my cell phone. I'm out playing in traffic. I'm always in the, you know, on the move. So that's usually the best way to get ahold of me if you want to email me. Uh, Joe, period, Mackey, M A C K E Y at MKDWealthCoach. com. So anybody that wants to connect and talk about any of that, whether it's, uh, EO, SOCH, or MKD, uh, or just life in general, almost dying and living, having big family, play around the golf, uh, let me know.

Wes: Well, I'm glad I could hit you up for that anytime. Well, Joe, thanks so much for coming on, man. Appreciate it.

Joe Mackey: Thanks, Wes.