Ep 227 Legacy Building for Entrepreneurs: Vince Warnock’s Journey

Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
Vince Warnock, welcome to the Midlife Fulfill podcast.

Vince Warnock [00:00:04]:
Oh my goodness, Bernie. So good to be here, man. I’ve been looking forward to this.

Bernie Borges [00:00:09]:
Thank you, Vince. So good to have you. Glad that you’re healthy again. I know we had to reschedule due to that flu that’s making its way around the world. I think my guest probably already picked up on the fact that you have, an Australian accent, and you are located in Australia. I’m in Florida, so we are on opposite ends of the world. Yeah.

Vince Warnock [00:00:26]:
All And this, I’m looking forward to a conversation. Kiwi accent, New Zealand accent, but it’s a hybrid. So most people can’t tell anyway. But we we’re from New Zealand, but moved to Australia about probably eighteen months ago.

Bernie Borges [00:00:38]:
Okay. Well, as an American, I’m sorry to be ignorance here. I I

Vince Warnock [00:00:42]:
That’s alright. You Canadians are forgiven. Yeah.

Bernie Borges [00:00:45]:
Yeah. Sure I’m not the only American that, can’t can’t distinguish the two.

Vince Warnock [00:00:49]:
Most Australians can’t distinguish, so don’t worry.

Bernie Borges [00:00:52]:
Is that right? Okay. Alright. Vince, I invited you on the podcast to have what I call a vulnerable conversation because you’ve got a very, achieved career. I mean, you’ve been an author multiple multiple times over. You have a podcast that is approaching 700 episodes. I feel like a rookie at 225 or so episodes compared to that. You’re a very accomplished marketing strategist. You’re a coach.

Bernie Borges [00:01:27]:
You’re a speaker. But, you know what I really wanna know, Vince? It’s like, who are you? Like, what makes you tick? Let’s start there.

Vince Warnock [00:01:37]:
Yeah. I love that. Well, the the first thing is as soon as you started reading out some of those accomplishments, I immediately tensed up on the inside and wanted to make a joke about every one of them and go, oh, and play them all down. So, inside, the real Vince is just a standard insecure human being like the rest of us. So, I mean, I grew up in a very abusive home. So as a child, I grew up in a very impoverished area of New Zealand. We were a very poor family, and my father was a drug addict. And, yeah, my five sisters, my brother, and myself just grew up in a very horrible environment.

Vince Warnock [00:02:11]:
So, it’s kind of an environment where you really couldn’t stand out, like, as in you didn’t want to stand out because if you did, you were a target. So I I had no voice, is how I like to word it. I had no voice for the first probably eleven years of my life. I mean, school was my happy place. Like, that was a way to escape any kind of abuse. But still there, I was really apprehensive to even speak out in a lot of cases, apprehensive to kinda put myself in front of others because that was a vulnerable place for me. So wasn’t till the age of 11 where I discovered an incredible and very inspiring teacher, who taught me, not only taught me a lot of academic stuff and things as well, but taught me to believe in myself and and showed me that I didn’t have to be defined by my past or had didn’t have to be defined by my situation or my circumstance. And it had a profound profound impact on me, Britney.

Vince Warnock [00:03:03]:
It really did. I not only just started to believe in myself. It’s the first time I ever felt hope, and I didn’t know what that hope was. I just knew there was this weird bubbly feeling on the inside, and I’m like, this is really uncomfortable. I don’t know what this is. Then figured out, oh, oh, this is a good thing. So it’s the first time I ever felt that and felt like I could believe in myself, but it also inspired me to want to help other people as well. And it’s kind of if I look at my entire career, I’ve gone in and out of entrepreneurship, in and out of, you know, corporates, in and out of different situations.

Vince Warnock [00:03:34]:
And right now, I run seven businesses. And it wasn’t till actually, last year, Bernie, I I don’t know if I told you this, but last year, I was on somebody else’s show, and he kept grilling me about my seven businesses again. But what’s the connection? I’m like, I’m the connection. But you got a publishing company. Yes. Because I’m an accomplished author, and I I love helping other people do this. We particularly work with neurodivergent people. He goes, yeah.

Vince Warnock [00:03:56]:
But you run AI companies. Yeah. What’s an area of expertise of mine? And you run marketing. Well, I’m known for marketing. And it wasn’t until we kinda grilled he grilled me on it and got it down to, you know, the essence of what those seven companies were. And he kinda got me fired up on the inside, and he was going, but but why? But why? But why, Vince? And I’m like and I got all agitated, and then I turned around and I snapped at them in a good way. I kinda snapped them. I said, because everybody deserves a voice.

Vince Warnock [00:04:22]:
And he goes, ah, there it is. And I went, oh, yeah. There it is. I realized that everything I do now is to go back to that child like Vince and other people like that and give them a voice. So yeah. So that’s that’s kind of what’s on the inside there is a jumbled mess of emotions and security. So imposter syndrome, self doubt, but at the same time, somebody who is passionate about giving other people a voice and the opportunities I never had when I was a child.

Bernie Borges [00:04:49]:
Well, that’s an amazing story, and thank you for for sharing that story. I’m sure even though it was a long time ago, I’m sure those memories are still difficult. And, boy, you know, what a what a wonderful thing that that teacher took you, you know, under their wing and and comforted you and coached you and really had a major, major impact on your life that way. I’m sure that he or she, if they know that, I prob they probably do know that, that it’s something that’s very fulfilling for them, and chances are they’ve done that, with other people as well. So you said something that I wanna maybe unpack a little bit. Vince, you said that, you know, you also wanna help others because, again, you’ve got all these multiple businesses going on, and you wouldn’t be doing it if you didn’t have a passion. I mean, skill set aside. I mean, I’m I’m I’m not even gonna go down the path of skill set, but you wouldn’t do it if you didn’t have a passion.

Bernie Borges [00:05:45]:
A part of that passion is the people that you’re impacting. So maybe you can elaborate on that a little bit.

Vince Warnock [00:05:50]:
Yeah. I mean, we we call them the misfits collective. It’s a it’s a joke my wife and I came up with for all the people that we like, basically, because they all tend to be people that, like myself felt like they never fit in. And, you know, through that childhood I talked about before, there was always a a an undercurrent there where I didn’t feel like I fit in anywhere. And part of that is due to my neurodivergence. So I have ADHD, which was very difficult growing up because they hadn’t invented it then, so they didn’t actually know what it was. They didn’t know they I was just, you know, a little bit of a mischievous child who couldn’t sit still, couldn’t follow instructions and rules and all those kind of things as well. So so the people that help now are very much kind of a reflection of that.

Vince Warnock [00:06:34]:
They’re very much the people that, you know, pushing themselves out there and and wanting to help other people, but at the same time feeling like they don’t fit in, feeling like, they don’t have a voice, feeling like other people always seem to get the opportunity to accept them. And that’s why, with our publishing company, for example, we work a lot with people with ADHD and dyslexia, and help them to write and publish books. And and I can tell you now, Betty, it is the most selfishly fulfilling thing I’ve ever done in my life. Like, that that moment where, you know, you’ve got somebody like, we’ve got one of our clients who’s, dyslexia, and had never ever thought he could read or write. Probably never thought he could be a published author. That was well beyond the realms of possibility, but he was determined that he really wanted to do this. So he had heard about us and and the fact we created the ADHD publishing standards and all these kind of things and said, I need your help. So we went, right.

Vince Warnock [00:07:26]:
Okay. Let’s do this. When we sat on Zoom together after he published his book, he got the Amazon envelope, and he got to rip it open. I’m sitting there with him going, oh, this is gonna be awesome. I can’t wait to see the look on his face. He’s gonna lay lay everybody does. They light up. You know, their eyes glint and they get that little smile.

Vince Warnock [00:07:41]:
So he rips open this envelope and he pulls out his book and he looks at it and he just goes deadpan. No emotion. Nothing. And I’m like, my my my RSD, my rejection sensitivity just kinda goes, oh my goodness. He hates the book. Like, he doesn’t like it. There’s something in him. This goes, this is not what I wanted.

Vince Warnock [00:07:57]:
So I’m sitting there going, please respond, thinking, can we give me something to work with here? And he just looked at me and burst into tears and just said, I I can’t believe I’ve done this. Like, I I never ever thought I could do this. I I just and it was a such a shared moment. And, of course, I stayed totally professional, Bernie. And, you know, I kept my no. I balled I balled my eyes out, man. The two of us, two crow men come pulling our eyes out on Zoom. But it was such a special moment to see him and realize he now had that accomplishment, that thing that he never thought he could do.

Vince Warnock [00:08:29]:
So so those are my people, basically. My people are the people that never thought they could accomplish something but always had the desire to do it. And and I helped them achieve it.

Bernie Borges [00:08:38]:
Wow. That that’s a great story. You probably have more stories like that is what I’m I’m thinking of.

Vince Warnock [00:08:45]:
If you if I was to tell you every one of my stories, we would be good for years. Yeah.

Bernie Borges [00:08:48]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m a storyteller. Yeah. No. That’s amazing. How do you integrate, your family life? You know, you you shared your the vulnerability of your own upbringing Yeah.

Bernie Borges [00:09:00]:
And now you’re a family man. So how do you integrate, you know, your family with everything that you’re doing in your career?

Vince Warnock [00:09:08]:
Well, first of all, through a lot of mistakes. And by that, I mean, I was, you know, typical kind of ambitious entrepreneur type. And I remember when we suddenly found out that, my wife was pregnant with our first child, who now, by the way, has just turned 28, so that was a long time ago. But when she was pregnant with our first child, I was, you know, I was the ever ever diligent husband and, you know, soon to be father kind of thing. I was there listening to everything she said to me and every concern she had over because back then, we we basically had no money. You know, we were very poor. We were very young. We’re just kinda starting out in our careers, and I think she was still studying.

Vince Warnock [00:09:47]:
So I was like, okay. I need to listen to it. And she was telling me all the things that we need. You know, what how we’re gonna afford developmentally appropriate toys? How we’re gonna afford this? How we’re gonna afford that? And I’m going, you know what? I’m seeing a theme here. I’m thinking it’s all how we can afford. I know what I need to do. I need to work harder. I need to work more.

Vince Warnock [00:10:04]:
I need to work oh, all the overtime I can in my day job, I need to work all the time I can on my side hustle business so I can raise more money, and therefore, she will be feeling happy, which, of course, was the stupidest thing ever. So it meant I was out at home even more. I was just trying to, you know, push and push. And when our baby was born, I came home one day, and my wife was just sitting in the middle of the living room, baby in the floor in front of her, and I just looked at her and realized she’s broken. Like, this has been really tough on her. She had, you know, severe post natal depression, as a result and all this kind of stuff. And I it is that moment that hit me like a hammer. I just looked at her and said, you needed me here, didn’t you? She went, yeah.

Vince Warnock [00:10:44]:
I said, I’ve let you down, haven’t I? And she went, yeah. And it was a tough pill to swallow. It really was. I I realized I had screwed up big time. But it taught me an incredibly valuable lesson that not everything I see is solvable in the way that I think it is, that actually I need to be really attentive and really understanding of what people are feeling and things, particularly my wife. So so I changed it up. And when we had our second kid, it was about, okay. I wanna be there.

Vince Warnock [00:11:09]:
I wanna balance this really well so that I can actually do it. And I thought, right. I’m gonna nail this second time around, man. I’ve got this. It’s gonna be awesome. Our son got to the age of 12, and, I was on the road nonstop at that point.

Bernie Borges [00:11:22]:
Your first son?

Vince Warnock [00:11:24]:
What’s that?

Bernie Borges [00:11:24]:
Your first son?

Vince Warnock [00:11:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. We’ve got two kids. Our daughter’s our first, and our son was our second. He’s just turned 22. And, yeah, when he was 12, we were in the middle of building a huge startup. It was a really high growth tech startup. It was awesome, but I knew I was doing this for the family.

Vince Warnock [00:11:41]:
You know, I was bringing them on the journey, so I would talk to them about what we’re trying to accomplish, but then I’d be on the road all the time. And I came home from a trip. I’d actually come back from Sydney, at a conference in Sydney, And my son just sat me down and he said, hey, Dak. Can we have a chat? I said, yeah. Sure. And he sat me down and said, look. I know you’re building a really good company, but I think we need to spend more time together. And as a dad, when you hear that, there’s two things that go on in me.

Vince Warnock [00:12:06]:
It was kinda split down the middle. Half of me is, like, really proud of the fact that we created this environment where our kids could just be open and and free with us. You know, could actually discuss things that are concerning them without feeling any kind of weirdness about you know, like, it just he was just open to talk about that, and I was very proud of that. But then the other half of me was like, ouch. Like, how did I not pick this up before? So I just I said, very good point. Hold that thought. Picked up my phone. He he rolled his eyes because he was like, oh, dad’s on his phone again.

Vince Warnock [00:12:35]:
But I rang my cofounders and just said, hey. That’s it. I’m done. Yeah, it was it was a Saturday morning, I think it was, when we did this. And I said, I’ll see you guys in the office Monday, but we’re gonna hire someone to replace me. And, yeah, because we had crossed all pile of milestones with the business, but I need to spend more time with my family. And when I got off the phone, three things happened. First of all, my my cofounders were all swearing their head off at me going, what? No.

Vince Warnock [00:12:57]:
This can’t happen. Right? So they were freaking out about this. But I felt two things. I felt a huge sense of relief going, oh my goodness, all the pressure of the business lifting off me. That was a good feeling. But I also loved my son, and he just went, wow. That was easy. And he realized that he is a priority.

Vince Warnock [00:13:14]:
My family are my priority and things. So so from those mistakes, I learned a lot, but the key thing I learned was bring them on the journey with you. And my wife and I, we do daily walks where we talk and I talk about, you know, the pressure of the business. She’s actually in the business now with me. But we talk about the pressures of the business. We talk about our what we wanna achieve. We talk about our goals and ambitions and everything. And we constantly talk about this because it’s constantly evolving.

Vince Warnock [00:13:38]:
You know? Like, every day, we’ve got all this new idea. My team go, oh, no. Not a new idea. My wife’s going, hey. This is a great idea. But but we get to talk about that and bring them on the journey with us.

Bernie Borges [00:13:48]:
Okay. So, as you know, I’ve got my five pillars, Vince. Yep. Health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy. So maybe you can remark on, you know, as you are in this stage of life where, you know, you really have this balance going on with between your family and all your multiple businesses, You you know that you’ve you’ve been successful. So achieving success is not probably not something I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but it’s not something you’re chasing. It’s something that you’ve been experiencing for quite some time. Yep.

Bernie Borges [00:14:23]:
But holistically, across those five pillars remember, this is a vulnerable conversation. So across those five pillars, is there one or two pillar that you feel like you’re really focused on? And I’ll give you an example. For me, I’m still working on aspects of my career pillar.

Vince Warnock [00:14:39]:
Yep.

Bernie Borges [00:14:40]:
And I’m very much working on my legacy pillar. You know? And I I wanna believe that this podcast is a contribution to that. Yeah. So maybe you can remark on, you know, holistically as you look at the the the full spectrum of your life and where you are, and then you look at those five pillars. What are you working on?

Vince Warnock [00:15:00]:
Oh my goodness. Well, if you had asked me this, let’s see. We’re in February. If you had asked me this two months ago, it’d be very different. But the the two I’m working on, legacy, which I’m always working on anyway, and health at the moment. And that’s the new one because I kinda realized the end of last year, I was pushing myself quite a bit, because the legacy piece is really important to me. But the health was taking a a hit as a result of that. I wasn’t as active as I wanna be and everything.

Vince Warnock [00:15:26]:
So so I make a competition out of it as I always do. I put some goals down towards it as well. And and wife and I joined a gym, which we’re at now seven days a week. We do, like, eight or nine sessions a week, at the gym, but mixing in kind of aqua fitness and also, you know, gym stuff and group fitness and things like that as well, and just really enjoying that. And and we’re even we’re even in talks. You’re gonna be the first to hear this to join a circus school. So I’m actually on the board of a circus school, a training facility in New Zealand, And we’ve found a circus hub here, which is, teaches people how to do, like, aerial acrobatics and things. And we’re like, you know what? Let’s do it.

Vince Warnock [00:16:03]:
It’s crazy. It’s kind of fun. And and it’ll be it’ll be something that we can both work on our whole together and get a bit more fit. So that’s one pillar. The legacy piece, though, is always something that’s a priority for me. I I’m really big on just trying to help as many people as possible and trying to help them basically be what their teacher was to me when I was age 11. And if I can build a legacy out of that, that’s fantastic. So we’ve, we’ve launched a magazine.

Vince Warnock [00:16:28]:
We’ve got a podcast. We’ve got, obviously, the publishing company and a bunch of other businesses. But this year, it’s about, okay, how do we expand some of that? We’re launching a second, second magazine. We’re launching a streaming service. We’re launching a bunch of different stuff to help entrepreneurs to get that breakthrough, and all of that is about leaving legacy. I mean, a lot of those are uneven monetized. Some of those are not for profit. Some of those are just something where we just make it available for free for entrepreneurs because we want them to be able to have that leg up and have that opportunity.

Bernie Borges [00:16:58]:
K. That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. Back to your kids. How what kind of advice have you offered your kids given, you know, the experiences that you’ve had throughout your life and, you know, some of the challenges you faced and sort of mistakes you’ve overcome, which, by the way, you know that that’s true for all of us.

Vince Warnock [00:17:17]:
Yeah.

Bernie Borges [00:17:18]:
But what kind of advice have you offered them?

Vince Warnock [00:17:21]:
I think there’s been two kind of pillars of advice that have been really important to me as a dad. And one of those is about making sure that you can control your own income. Like, it was really important to me that they know that you don’t have to be beholden to some corporate job or some, you know, retail job or anything like that. But you can actually create your own wealth. And we instilled that in the kids from a very young age. I mean, they modeled it by showing them how we could build businesses, how money was actually pretty easy to make. And then both of them had their business their own businesses from age, like, seven. I think my son started when he was seven.

Vince Warnock [00:17:53]:
My daughter started when she was 11. And they both had various different businesses over the time than that. So that’s been really encouraging to see as a parent. You’re like, phew. We did that right. But the other one and probably the more important one was teaching them that you can’t take things at face value, that you have to be incredibly curious about a life and about people. And I will share this story, but it was something that I learned when I was at high school. And, started when funny enough, it started when I was 11.

Vince Warnock [00:18:23]:
So a very, very important time in my life, age 11 for some reason. But Yeah.

Bernie Borges [00:18:27]:
I noticed that.

Vince Warnock [00:18:28]:
Yeah. As well as having that inspiring teacher, I also found something else. I found a bully at school. And when you have a bully at school and you’ve got a bully at home, I suddenly had no safe space. So for two years, this bully made my life hell. Like, he was just an incredibly abusive person. Just took joy out of of really abusing other people. And at age 13, I went off to high school and he went to a different high school.

Vince Warnock [00:18:55]:
So I’m like, yes. Finally, I’m free from the tyrant. You know? And I also realized that my entire life meant that I was a victim. You know? As in I was someone who could be pushed around by other people. My father pushed me around all the time. This bully pushed me around. So I decided I was gonna do something about that. I was gonna learn how to defend myself.

Vince Warnock [00:19:13]:
So kind of threw myself into martial arts, threw myself into boxing, and kickboxing. And, for probably the next, let’s see, five years, I got to the stage where I was actually okay that, you know, certainly nothing nothing to be scared of, but could defend myself. And that’s when something weird happened. That bully got transferred to my school. It was my last year of high school, and suddenly this bully was there with me. And now I’m in a point where I’m not a victim. So I’ve seen every eighties movie, Bernie. I know I know this this feeling where the nerdy underdog comes out on top.

Vince Warnock [00:19:49]:
This was gonna be a glorious moment. So he will pass one day, and I yelled his name and and the expeletable too. And he turned around, and in this usual habitual thing, he just kinda stomped over, and he took a swing at me. And but this time, instead of, you know, taking a hit, I was just moved out of the way, and I’m like, nope. And he took another swing. I’m like, nope. And he took another swing, and I’m like, I was playing with him. And then finally, he took a swing, and it got a little bit too close, so I I smacked him.

Vince Warnock [00:20:16]:
And I laid him out. He was on the ground unconscious, and that was the moment I knew I was gonna feel good, but I did not. In fact, I felt terrible. I’m standing there going, why do I not feel good at all? Next thing you know, I’m in the principal’s office. Now which, of course, is what happened when you fight at high school.

Bernie Borges [00:20:31]:
So I’m in the

Vince Warnock [00:20:32]:
principal’s office, and the principal pulled me aside. He pulled me into another room, and he sat me down. He goes, okay, Vincent. I expected a lot more of you. And I was like, oh, yeah. Well, you don’t understand the situation. He goes, do you know why he was transferred to the school? And I’m thinking, man, he’s making it about this guy. I said, I have no idea.

Vince Warnock [00:20:49]:
I don’t care. You know, it’s probably all storage. And he goes, well, you should care. He said he was transferred here because his father had ritualistically abused him, his mom, and his his sister, all of their life. And he was an incredibly abusive man and abused the mother in front of the two kids so much that she actually look took she lost her life. And he basically beat her to death in front of the two kids. And I’m standing there now absolutely speechless. I’m feeling terrible.

Vince Warnock [00:21:17]:
I’m like, well, I I didn’t know that. And he goes, well, then he had to move to his auntie’s place, and that’s why he’s transferred to the school. And I said, well, I didn’t know that.

Bernie Borges [00:21:24]:
And he

Vince Warnock [00:21:24]:
goes, no. I wouldn’t expect you to know that. He goes, but of all the people that I thought would have understood what he was going through, I thought that would be you. And there was he was going through. No. Exactly. Exactly. But he he basically saw he thought I would see the patterns in this individual.

Vince Warnock [00:21:42]:
And I realized, you know, when I started looking at it, I I realized a few things. I realized, first of all, I’m not the hero of the story at all. I’m the villain. I’m the one person who had a chance to be there for this kid and wasn’t. You know? And I I don’t blame myself for that, but I do blame myself for not being curious enough. And in hindsight, it’s very easy to see all of the signs were there. Very easy in hindsight. I could see that this kid was actually incredibly insecure, was was very, like, desperately wanting people to like him, and the only way he knew how to do that was violence because that’s what he saw in the home.

Vince Warnock [00:22:13]:
So it was, it also taught me, by the way, that every eighties movie lied to me. Like, don’t believe eighties movies, any of you. They’re all lies. Violence is not the answer to any of these things. But, it was a really important lesson for me, and it made me realize that I have no idea what’s going on in people’s lives. I have no idea what’s happening in behind the behind their actions. So it made me be very focused on being curious about other people. And and that’s helped me at every stage of my career.

Vince Warnock [00:22:39]:
It’s helped me to understand people. Like, understand neurodiversity. I get really curious about it, and therefore, I can be there for people like that. It helps me to deal with bullies and and people that are abusive and things. So that was a really important lesson to instill into my children was don’t take things at face value. Always try and understand. Like, obviously, if someone smacks you in the face, that’s a horrible thing to happen. And you don’t wanna understand there and go, oh, that’s nice of you.

Vince Warnock [00:23:04]:
I wonder what you’re gonna like, obviously, you wanna get out of the situation. But be curious about that. Find out what’s behind

Bernie Borges [00:23:10]:
that. And So so, Vince, thank you for sharing that that story. I’m curious though, no pun intended. I am curious if you and that individual connected after that. Did you have conversation with him, or was that just the end of it?

Vince Warnock [00:23:25]:
I I would love that to be the ending of the story to go, hey. You know, I then managed to be there for him. But, no, I was still I mean, I was 17 at the time. I was still young and immature and things. And and it took it like, even though that was an epiphany moment for me, it took me years to really embrace that

Bernie Borges [00:23:40]:
properly.

Vince Warnock [00:23:41]:
And and, he went off, after that. He actually left school after they just dropped out. And I sadly don’t know anything that happened to him after that point. But yeah. So so thanks for bringing that up, Nacho. Yeah. Yeah.

Bernie Borges [00:23:56]:
Well, you you remind me of a story in my own life, and it wasn’t in my youth. It was actually, early in my first business. So I was in my forties, so hardly my youth. And, I was at a networking event, Vince. And, you know, at a networking event, you’re there to network. You’re there to meet people and see if you can get some business from it. And I remember striking up a conversation with a gentleman, and he had quickly let me know that he had just been laid off from a company. He mentioned the company.

Bernie Borges [00:24:27]:
I knew who the company was. Yeah. It was here locally where I live. And, Vince, the first thought that ran through my head, and I’m ashamed to say this, but that’s why I’m telling the story. The first thought that I that I thought of was, this guy is a waste of my time. I need to get away from him. Yeah. Now, again, I’m I’m ashamed to say that, but here’s the reason I tell the story.

Bernie Borges [00:24:50]:
In the same conversation, because I didn’t just rudely walk away from him, we we stayed in conversation. He mentioned that the company that he was just laid off from was looking for to contract with a digital marketing agency specifically to do SEO. And guess what I’m doing back then? I was doing SEO. So I said, oh, wow. Well, that’s what I do. And he said, well, I I can introduce you to the head of marketing. So he gave me the person’s name. I contacted him, set up a meeting, and I got the business.

Bernie Borges [00:25:21]:
And so I look back on that conversation and and go, wow. To me, it was a god moment. Like, that like, god put him in my path for a reason because even though I had that selfish thought

Vince Warnock [00:25:32]:
Yeah.

Bernie Borges [00:25:33]:
Which was a huge lesson for me, I’ve never had that thought again. I’ve never had a conversation with someone ever since then. No matter what the situation or circumstance, and so I’ve never thought this person’s a waste of my time. So that that’s the value of the experience that I had. Like, I have never, and I don’t think I ever will have that thought again.

Vince Warnock [00:25:55]:
Yeah. I love that. I love that. Yeah. I’m I’m a firm believer in that as well. I don’t I don’t have regrets as such. Like, even in that situation, you know, I like I said, I wasn’t the hero. I was the villain in that and, yeah, accidentally the villain in that situation.

Vince Warnock [00:26:08]:
But I don’t have regrets around that. I have learnings. And and that’s funny enough where chasing the insights came from. It’s the whole thing of, I want the insights from those situations. I wanna learn so they don’t make those mistakes again. So, yeah, I love that story, man. Yeah. I I’m a firm believer too that there there is no wasted interactions with people.

Vince Warnock [00:26:25]:
Yeah. As in, you know, if you meet somebody, always treat them with respect. I I found somebody who, they wanted my help. They wanted me to help them with coaching them around marketing and things like that. And, the more I talked to them, the more I realized I’m not the right person for them. And I just I I had to be upfront with them and say, look. I don’t think I can help you. And not from a skill perspective or anything, but I don’t think you actually need what you think you need.

Vince Warnock [00:26:50]:
Because they thought they needed, help with marketing to connect with the audience. But what I realized the more I talked to them was they actually had to deal with their own insecurities, and they had a huge confidence issue. They even just trying to get honestly, it was hilarious, but I trying to get a a marketing message out of them, like, what do you do? You know, like, tell me how you help people. And everything out of their mouth was a string of words, sure, that were all put together but really didn’t say anything. And I was trying to get to the heart of how they help people and what they’re trying to do, and they just keep using bigger and bigger words, and they keep trying to describe it. And I realized there there’s a hesitation in them to speak just normal plain English because there’s an insecurity around what they do, and they feel that and I even asked them. I said, look, can I ask you? When you started doing this, did you get a lot of pushback from people who said, oh, what you’re doing is just weird, and you, you know, it’s it’s not real science or this and they’re like, oh, yeah. Of course.

Vince Warnock [00:27:43]:
And I said, you feel like you constantly need to justify yourself to other people and justify what you do? And they went, well, yeah. I said, well, there’s the problem. The problem isn’t when they’re marketing. I said, what you wanna do is the money that you’re gonna pay me. Don’t pay me. Go and find a counselor. Go and find somebody that can actually work through these insecurities, get you the breakthrough. Once you’ve got that breakthrough, come back and see me.

Vince Warnock [00:28:04]:
And if you if it doesn’t just suddenly all slot together, then I’m here for you. And so they did that. They went off and they got counseling, and it really did make a huge impact. They didn’t need to come back to me afterwards. They filled their program. I was kinda like, damn. That was way too effective. I should probably learn counseling now.

Vince Warnock [00:28:19]:
But it wasn’t a waste of interaction. And the help that I get and I do this often. I give free strategy calls with people. And I I get a lot of flack from other marketers going, oh, you shouldn’t do that, man. You’re just giving away your knowledge for free. So it was it’s not really. If you help someone, I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? Oh, no. I helped somebody.

Vince Warnock [00:28:36]:
Oh, poor me. But the best that can happen is what usually happens, which is that person that I said no to told them to go and get therapy. They introduced me to about six other people that became clients of mine. Sure. Because they were just like, hey. This guy here, you can trust him. He’s not in it for the money. He’s not in it for just trying to get the deal.

Vince Warnock [00:28:55]:
He actually cares about you. Yeah. Yeah.

Bernie Borges [00:28:58]:
Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Vince, we haven’t known each other very long, and, I don’t know that we’ll ever get a chance to break bread given the geographic, like, how many oceans are between us. That would be very enjoyable if somehow that can happen. But in the meantime, I just wanna thank you for giving me thirty minutes of your life to, to record this episode with me, this vulnerable conversations episode. I really enjoy these conversations, and I really appreciate you being available for this kind of conversation because, you know, we could have spent hours just talking business and all the things you’ve accomplished. But I think the value of sharing your story and what you’ve learned and the your point about being curious in everything in life, that’s a very powerful and compelling point.

Bernie Borges [00:29:51]:
And I wanna thank you for that, Vincent. And and let the listener know if they wanna connect with you and just learn more about you, where they can find you online.

Vince Warnock [00:29:58]:
Oh, I make it so hard for them. No. I’m joking. Just if you go to chasingtheinsights.com, that’s my home. That’s where you’ll see my podcast, my books. That’s where you’ll see where to connect with me. Connect with me on social. I’m always always keen to meet new people.

Vince Warnock [00:30:12]:
And, yeah, if you need help, if you really wanna stand out in a very crowded market, you really wanna become a thought leader, then, book a book a call with me. We’ll sit down. We’ll come up with a strategy.

Bernie Borges [00:30:24]:
Cool. Well, Vince, my listener knows that’ll be in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me for this vulnerable conversation.

Vince Warnock [00:30:32]:
It has been an absolute pleasure, Bernie. Thank you so much.