Payment Processing: Key Insights for Entrepreneurs – ep 104

Mostafa Hosseini  00:03

Welcome to daily confidence for entrepreneurs and this episode, you will discover how to take responsibility for your life, how to set your mind to do anything. While you don’t need too much planning and the fact that you just need to take a step and you will watch yours truly get exposed and coached by my friend, Don, sick, Laurie. Well, as usual, if you’re watching or listening, please make sure you like and subscribe to the show.

If you have a friend that could benefit from the topic to our talk. Today we’re talking about top three ways merchant processors rip you off, and more. So if you’re anyone that needs to learn about that they have they’re working with different merchant processors and they need some education and information on how to protect themselves and how to minimize their expenses and the rest of it have them join us and and or send the link to the show to them if you’re watching or listening. My guest today is Don sick, Larry. Welcome, Don.

Don Siclari  01:01

Thank you Mostafa.

Mostafa Hosseini  01:02

How’s your day so far?

Don Siclari  01:04

That’s pretty bummed to be honest.

Mostafa Hosseini  01:06

Fantastic. So let me let me do the proper introduction to Don and we’re going to dive into a very interesting conversation. Don Cyclery is an entrepreneur, flight medic and functional medicine practitioner, martial artist, world traveler and a spiritual seeker, through realizing he didn’t want to live beholden to other people’s schedules. He started his first business in check dotnet while a student at Miami University with $250 in his bank account, for the purpose of creating freedom in his life, to pursue his passions.

Today in check is a seven figure payment processor and done lives on two continents has dual citizenship and has traveled to 50 countries. He continues running in check sees patients for functional medicine, consults, and travels to train with his hot spiritual teachers while enjoying the bliss of being in his dream relationship. Welcome, Don.

Don Siclari  02:09

Thank you.

Mostafa Hosseini  02:11

Well, how was your day so far?

Don Siclari  02:13

It’s gone pretty well. Just sitting in a Starbucks here in Cincinnati.

Mostafa Hosseini  02:18

Love it. What’s the weather like where you’re at right now.

Don Siclari  02:23

oppressively hot and humid? I learned something yesterday. cornfields sweat, and corn sweat creates this like tropical level of humidity in the Midwest.

Mostafa Hosseini  02:34

Interesting. So before the show, you told me that you’re on a street were you had a story there? Yeah.

Don Siclari  02:42

So when I started in Czech, I was a student at Miami University, which is about 45 minutes from here in Oxford, Ohio. And we started with processing bad checks. And I didn’t have an business network or anything like I have now. So I had to go out and knock on doors. So the first doors I knocked on were on this street in Cincinnati where I am right now.

And I remember one particular time, I literally didn’t have enough money to pay for gas to get home. I told myself I need to sign somebody with a setup fee today to get back to campus. And that was on the street that I’m the timing just happened to work out. I’m on a road trip across the country. And I just happen to be right here on the street. Wow, your finger show.

Mostafa Hosseini  03:26

That’s very interesting. So I don’t what is the rest of your story? What’s the backstory? Where did you start? What What has the journey been like? And where are you at today?

Don Siclari  03:35

Well, when I was a kid, there were four things I wanted to be a businessman, a priest, a doctor, and a warrior. And in one way or another, all four of those archetypes are still alive in my life. So what happened was, and I was in college, I was on a pre med track. I grew up in a pretty struggling poor family. I wasn’t getting any assistance from my family or anything like that with college. So I was working as a firefighter EMT making about four or $500 a month at that point, which was enough to pay for gas and you know, food and beer and whatnot.

But my interests were mainly outside of college, I was spending a lot of time training with my martial arts teacher who was in the area and going to paramedic school concurrently with my junior year. And then I got an opportunity to work at a local business that a friend of mine on the fire department’s mother had given him a quarter of a million dollars to start a company utilizing this new technology to process bad checks. And he said, Hey, you have a good personality?

Why don’t you come try sales? Well, I’m living on nothing and don’t really know where I’m going other than, you know, the plan was to apply to medical school and take on a whole bunch of debt and come out working shifts as an ER doctor and no matter how much I love emergency medicine, I realized at that age, you know, if I was having to do it to pay off my loans, it would probably get old and so I said sure I’ll give this a try. And I did well While I was bringing a lot of accounts in, and at some point, I realized I could I could do this myself, I had a bigger vision for what I wanted to do. And the idea for me wasn’t necessarily to make X amount of dollars, it was to create a lifestyle of a freedom to pursue the passions that really drove me.

And I had $250 in my account, which allowed me to buy a $99 fax machine on clearance. And I set up a relationship with somebody who could process the checks and pay me a commission. So I, I bought that fax machines made a black and white, you know, we call the fax package at that time, advertisement started faxing it out to random businesses who took a lot of checks. And then did that for a while went back to Connecticut.

My father gave me some office space in his office, he was an accountant ran in check while I was working as a paramedic support myself. And then around 2008 2009, when the economy hit, people stopped taking checks, you know, big giants, like Walmart, put some of my independent grocery chains in the Midwest out of business, and we kind of hit financial rock bottom. So at that point, I restructured into electronic payments, which I saw as a more viable future than check processing.

Mostafa Hosseini  06:15

Love it. That’s a great story. And so there’s like there’s the evolution of going through the the processing checks. I don’t think checks are being used as much today, as they were back 20 years ago,

Don Siclari  06:33

not even close. I mean, some but very rare. I mean, back then it was like, you know, grocery stores took a lot of checks, especially in the Midwest, and the South pizza delivery didn’t have electronic, you know, online orders through with credit cards and such back then.

Yeah, thanks industries, you wouldn’t think of like school photography, you know, parents would send their kids into school with a check for the photos and book clubs for schools and things like that. So those were the industries we focused on. But slowly over time, as payment processing technology evolved and proliferated, checks become kind of irrelevant. Entrepreneurs

Mostafa Hosseini  07:07

design I remember back in the day, I use advantage at pizza place. And on delivery, we would get a printout of the credit cards and bring it back to the store running through the machine. And we didn’t have those, you know, the debit machines that people carry with them. Today,

Don Siclari  07:22

now we have you know, I offer an app that our clients can put on their smartphone, swipe a card or tap a contactless card right through their phone. So a lot of

Mostafa Hosseini  07:31

absolutely a lot has changed. So what are you doing these days? And who do you serve? So

Don Siclari  07:38

interestingly, in 2015, I kind of stepped away for a bit, I hired a vice president who took over the reins and ran the business, I moved to the UK, went back to school, got back into the medical field. And then the pandemic came around. And it hit us kind of hard. We have a lot of clients and travel and events, you know, and industries that were hit hard by the pandemic and the pandemic actually cost me that Vice President. So I’m back to running things.

Myself, we’re on a real growth curve. Again. Now, our you know, majority of our clients are internet marketers, coaches, info products, things like that online, we do do retail, but primarily we serve higher risk, higher volume ecommerce businesses.

Mostafa Hosseini  08:23

Love it. And so how do you serve them? We

Don Siclari  08:25

send it we set up and provide all the payment processing technology. So we provide the merchant account, we provide the chargeback processing and mitigation services, we provide the gateway technology, it’s pretty much a turnkey solution.

Mostafa Hosseini  08:42

That is awesome. So So you were going over to the this story on how cheques kind of became obsolete and they weren’t being used. And then you did some restructuring got into electronic payments. What’s the story there? And how did you start in check?

Don Siclari  08:58

What well, in so in check, interestingly, was a logo. So originally, the name of the company was Fudo Financial Corporation. I was like 19. And I thought having a company with the words Financial Corporation would sound important.

And and then in check was because the idea was we keep your bad checks in check. So we created this logo for in check, and I liked the logo so much and I didn’t feel like rebranding that when we when we restructured I just turned that logo into an LLC, and made it the name of of the company.

Mostafa Hosseini  09:38

They just kept the same name with the same

Don Siclari  09:43

trait, essentially. Yeah, I mean, I phased out the corporation and started an LLC called in check and kept that trademark and that logo and kept it for our merchant processing. Love

Mostafa Hosseini  09:54

1. So for the people that do Want to understand merchant processing, because I know you’re in the business tell us what merchant processing actually is. So

Don Siclari  10:08

essentially, here’s how I like to explain it. When you go to, say, a store and you buy a coffee and Starbucks or whatever, right? You take your credit card, and you either tap, swipe or inserted into a little machine, at the point of sale, that machine transmits your card data through the Visa, MasterCard card networks, there’s a few more steps involved. But the technical details aren’t, aren’t all that relevant to what’s called the acquiring bank.

There’s two banks involved in this in any transaction, there’s the issuing bank, which is the bank name that’s on your card. If it’s a debit card, or credit card, maybe it says Chase, or Wells Fargo or, you know, whatever, that’s the bank that issues your credit card, the acquiring banks are more unheard of those are the banks that we partner with that, essentially acquire the transaction.

So when you go to Starbucks, and you run your card, that machine transmits that data to the bank that Starbucks is essentially contracted with the process their cards, there’s a communication that happens between the issuing and acquiring banks, the money gets moved, it leaves your account settles into the merchants account. That’s why it’s called a merchant account.

And then what we there’s another step when it comes to the internet, it’s called a payment gateway. And the way I described that is is essentially, a credit card terminal for the internet does the same thing. It takes the card data from your customer on the website, transmits it to the same network. And the same behind the scenes settlement happens.

Mostafa Hosseini  11:37

Got it? I was talking to a buddy of mine. And he was thinking that he needs to get his payment machines from from his bank. Right? Is that a common thing that you that people think they need to go to their local bank and say, Hey, I need a machine or Oh, yes, didn’t

Don Siclari  12:02

know. So the the US the banks contract with third party processors like us, some of the banks provide direct acquiring services like that. But by and large, the bank stay away from higher risk stuff. And they allow companies like us to do it because we hold the risk. So you can go to your bank and get a machine or you can come to a company like mine and get a machine and there’s there’s not really any difference other than in terms of the technical aspect of things, the differences come in in terms of the service.

Mostafa Hosseini  12:34

i What is the difference for if someone goes to you versus they go directly to a bank? Well, we were a

Don Siclari  12:41

little bit different than most of that I scaled this way rather than this way. So rather than you know, I don’t use sales agents, I don’t have 20,000, you know, Mom and Pop restaurants in my portfolio, I pick and choose my clients, and they all come in through my networks like JB mm, you know, like you and I are part of.

So therefore we’re able to provide a intensive customer service experience, most of my clients I know personally, the rest of my staff know, personally. So we are able to provide answers very, very quickly.

Mostafa Hosseini  13:12

Okay, so they get they get the better customer service, because because I guess, with bigger companies, if I go to them, I would probably be a needle in a haystack, we’re you know, there are

Don Siclari  13:27

two things I can say about that with bigger companies, you’re probably not going to talk to a decision maker, you’re going to call into a customer service number and be put on hold and talk to somebody who’s you know, is a typical customer service rep, or you’re gonna go to the sales agent who sold you. But that sales agent doesn’t have any, any pull with the processor.

He’s just a middleman, he or she is just a middleman. Right. So this script with a script. So when you work with a company like ours, you’re talking to the sales guy, and the risk guy and the decision maker kind of all in one.

Mostafa Hosseini  14:01

Love it. And then so what is the geographic area of people that you serve?

Don Siclari  14:07

So primarily United States, we do have overseas relationships. And I do have a number of foreign clients that I’ve helped get set up in the US with companies and operating agreements and so forth to be able to process in the US. So essentially, we focus on US business, but in a way I can serve the whole world.

Mostafa Hosseini  14:27

So could you serve customers in Canada or you work with Canadian banks?

Don Siclari  14:33

I have a Canadian relationship. Yes. and European EU relationship. Oh,

Mostafa Hosseini  14:37

nice. Nice. So we talked about the top three ways that people get ripped off by their merchant processors. Could you share with us what some of what some of those ways are? And share with us what people could do to avoid that situation or how to fix it.

Don Siclari  14:59

Well, then The first thing is that I think if you’re new to merchant processing, and you haven’t run a large or high risk business, you wouldn’t really know what the pitfalls are that you’re looking for. Oftentimes, risk management becomes problematic for merchants.

Because if you don’t have a direct relationship with your processor, and they don’t know who you are and what you’re doing, we have all kinds of Automated Algorithmic risk management tools. And all it takes is a transaction getting flagged, somebody sitting in a cubicle in another state or another country, you know, can freeze your funds can choose to hold your funds can put a reserve on the account, meaning that a certain percentage is diverted into their bank account, rather than yours as a safety mechanism.

And this won’t be communicated to you because there’s no direct relationship, you’ll notice that you’re missing a deposit. And then you’ll call and wait on hold and try to get answers from Customer Service who has to talk to risk. We kind of skip all that because we do the risk management directly. So we’re very transparent about it. I know what you’re selling and who you are. And when something flags, I can call you, and we can discuss it, we can go from there.

So risk management is probably the biggest way, the biggest way that merchants get blindsided by payment processors, because they’re not expecting it. And so I’ve had a number of clients, you know, with stripe and some of the kind of turnkey what we call aggregators, because they’re not underwriting a merchant account directly for you. They’re kind of dumping you into a pool. And then when something goes haywire, all of a sudden, you’re missing a deposit.

They’re holding funds. And getting it from what I hear I’ve never worked with stripe directly, but getting answers is near impossible. So from the clients of mine that have converted, that’s that’s what I hear. So transparent risk management is definitely a big factor why our clients come to us and stay with us.

Mostafa Hosseini  16:51

Yeah, I haven’t been a victim of my funds being held. But I’ve heard quite a few stories with other famous processors, we’re, you know, someone worked on a launch for like a year or two. And they did a $300,000 million dollar launch that they were dreaming about. And all of a sudden, the payment processors processor was like holding it for like six months, well, launches

Don Siclari  17:15

are particularly quirky launches need to be planned. If you don’t, if you’re not coordinating your launch with your payment processor, they’re gonna freeze your funds. Because if an account goes from zero to $500,000, overnight, that’s a big risk flag. And if it’s not expected, if they don’t know that, that’s what’s coming, the funds are going to be held. So we handle launches in a particular way where everything is coordinated, and we’re prepared for it.

Mostafa Hosseini  17:43

For sure, for sure. I don’t get back into that. But is there any other way that people get ripped off, and they don’t know about it? 100%.

Don Siclari  17:52

So most of the people that merchants will communicate within the payment processing industry are independent salespeople who are middlemen. And these independent salespeople will, I hate to say it, but lie, cheat and steal to get their accounts approved. So that you may not have any idea what you’re paying, you may be told one thing and have find out something entirely different later. One of the things I laugh at is I’ll get I’ll hear from clients, you know, so and so pre approved me.

Well, so and so is a salesperson who has who is not an underwriter and has no ability to pre approve anything. So there’s all these terms that get tossed around and they feel good. They sound good. But unless you’re working directly with an underwriter at a payment processor or a bank directly, you got to take all that with a grain of salt.

Mostafa Hosseini  18:44

For sure. So they would say so what would happen next, then they will tell you that you’re pre approved. Yeah. So where is the ripoff process? Where is the we’re in how to how do I actually get ripped off? Well,

Don Siclari  18:58

you put in the application and you find out you’re actually not approved at all. You’re declined.

Mostafa Hosseini  19:05

Oh, for sure. Okay, cool. So here’s a couple of stories that I’ve heard. And like you said, people were promised something, paint switch. And then when they saw their statement, they’re like, I am paying a ton of fees, this fee that fee the I don’t like your face fee, the you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? How does that work?

Don Siclari  19:30

We definitely charge an extra fee for ugly faces.

Mostafa Hosseini  19:37

So how does that work? And is there a way to avoid it? For

Don Siclari  19:40

sure. There’s there’s a lot of different ways to price a merchant account. And there’s a lot of different fees that can be built in. For example, there’s what’s called the discount rate, which is the percentage you’re paying on each transaction. There’s the transaction fee, which is the flat fee, you’re paying the 25 cents or whatever on each transaction.

There As your abs fee a fee for validating the address, a CVV fee, a fee for validating the three digit code four digits. In the case of AmEx, there’s your chargeback fee. There’s your retrieval fee, there’s your monthly fee, there’s statement fees, there’s PCI security fees, there’s gateway fees to use the gateway. There’s chargeback alert fees. There’s the list goes on and on.

So, you know, for example, one of the common tricks is that there’s a pricing structure called three tier. And what that means is that there’s about 100 different categories that Visa and MasterCard classify transactions into and they all have different costs. So to make it easy, we often just break it down into three different buckets called qualified, mid qualified and non qualified without getting too deep into the technical details, let’s just say that a debit card would go through as qualified and a foreign card because it’s a higher risk would go through is non qualified.

So a processor may tell you Yeah, we’re gonna charge you two and a half percent, but they’re only telling you the qualified rate. And you’re looking at your statement, and you’re paying 5% for a non qualified cards, which is pretty normal. But you really should, should be aware of that there’s differences and, and so forth.

Mostafa Hosseini  21:12

All right. Okay. So there. So seems like there is there’s list of different types of fees that can be applied. And I know you may or may not be aware of, are those negotiable? Yes. Is that what every merchant?

Don Siclari  21:26

Yeah, mostly? For the most part? Yeah, I mean, except for like, you know, some of the big aggregators like Stripe have flat rate pricing. And it’s, they came in, and they created a flat rate, which people liked, because they know exactly what they’re paying. And whether it’s too much or too little is another conversation, but But it’s, it’s a flat rate.

So there’s probably not much negotiation negotiation there. But with most of your traditional merchant processors, there’s there’s room for negotiation, and a lot of it depends on your risk profile. So for example, hello. I saw you, I saw you thinking there for a second. So I, I got the cue. If you, you know, have credit issues, your higher risk profile, you’re gonna pay more, if you’ve been blacklisted and put on what’s called the match list before, you’re gonna pay more.

If you’ve been shut down by another processor, you’re gonna pay more if your product is in very high risk industries, like business opportunities, nutraceuticals, some coaching, CBD things like that, you’re gonna pay more bad credit repair, travel, those all have like, those are all premium high risk industries. If you are running a coffee shop, you’re gonna pay less.

Mostafa Hosseini  22:46

God is good people come in, they get their coffee, and there’s really not much yeah,

Don Siclari  22:49

I mean, they’re not going to likely to charge back that coffee. Right. So risk is determined by chargeback potential.

Mostafa Hosseini  22:57

Interesting, tell us what you mean by that? Well, what I mean

Don Siclari  23:00

by that is how I explained this as like this. So I hold the risk on your account my stuff. So if you sign up with us, and you’re launching Mustapha is one year subscription to your coaching program, I’m just making this up hypothetical, right. And let’s say you charge $1,200 for a one year subscription, three months into the program, you go out of business, you shut it down, you take your money, you leave the country, you go move to an island, and you live happily ever after.

Well, all those customers go, Well, I have nine months left in this subscription that I paid for all my money back. They can’t reach you. So they call their bank and they say, you know, I got ripped off here. This is fraud. So then that’s called a chargeback. So the chargeback comes through, and the first thing we do is try to take the money back from you, your account is closed, you took the money and ran. So I’m next on the hook for those chargebacks they come out of my account. So that’s where risk happens.

Mostafa Hosseini  24:01

Okay, got it. So that’s for as I’ve seen this where people they just, they just call the bank and they’re they claim that there was this was a false charge or it was a fraud for no reason. So

Don Siclari  24:17

friendly fraud, and that’s a that’s a different a different thing. But that happens a lot as well. I have clients in travel who, you know, a customer will actually take the flight and then call the bank and try to claim it was an unauthorized transaction or, you know, whatever and they’ve already taken the flight.

Mostafa Hosseini  24:34

Absolutely. And after we have to go in and show show what’s it called the receipts and all the all the details that they have actually received the service interest. Yeah, yeah. Hmm. Interesting. So, you talked about getting ready for launches.

So we we have a bunch of the different consultants and coaches in our network that do launches from time to time, a lot of them are just in early five or six figures, and they’re trying to plan new to grow and scale, how should they get ready for the big launch of they’re coming up with what do they need to do ahead of time to avoid getting their funds frozen, and the rest of it? Well,

Don Siclari  25:22

for one, you’re gonna want multiple accounts. And I have relationships with eight or nine different banks. So I provide, I mean, I can provide everything for a client from everything they need multiple accounts and, and balancing between them and among them, etc. But you’re going to want to communicate with your payment processor if you’re going to launch something because again, as I said, if the account blows up in volume overnight, it’s an automatic algorithmic red flag, the computer will freeze it.

So if that’s not expected, then then you’re going to you’re going to that money’s going to be held. So you’re going to want to communicate with your payment processor. And depending on the dynamics of the launch, what the product is the risk all of that, you’ll work out a strategy together, there may be a reserve involved, there may be no issues at all.

If you can do a launch on an existing account, so in other words, if you are, let’s say you’re running $50,000 a month, and you’re launching a new product, and you expect, you know, to go from 50,000 a month to 300,000, in one month, and then back down to say 75, because you’re launching, that mitigates the risk a little bit because there’s ongoing revenue before and after the launch. If you are at zero, and you’re expecting a million dollar launch, that’s where it gets more complicated. And so we would need to really look at that work with it.

Figure out a strategy for how do we mitigate our risk in case the launch doesn’t go as planned.

Mostafa Hosseini  26:54

For what I’m gathering, the big get big idea is to let her merchant know ahead of time that I’m working on this big launch, be ready for so much money? And then don’t freak out? If you see something in my account

Don Siclari  27:07

and diversify among multiple accounts, if

Mostafa Hosseini  27:10

it’s going to be that big. Like how do you diversify that.

Don Siclari  27:13

So if somebody comes to me, and they want to do a million dollar a month, and they’re currently processing 50, maybe I get them three accounts for 330,000, each kind of just just making this up. So I provide three different accounts with three different banks. And I provide the technology to balance the transaction volume amongst those accounts.

Mostafa Hosseini  27:37

Interesting, how would it be handled the front end on the website? Does this get automatically done and get automatically deposited in through three different accounts? Well,

Don Siclari  27:46

it’ll go on to the same bank account. It’ll just go through three different merchant accounts.

Mostafa Hosseini  27:52

So on the front end, and the website, there is one button that people use.

Don Siclari  27:56

I’m sorry, yes, I missed that. Yes. Yep. There’s, there’s no difference on the front end. It’s still the same checkout process. The balancing happens on the back end.

Mostafa Hosseini  28:05

Interesting. All right. Cool. I didn’t even know that that is possible. And that’s actually, I think, a really cool feature that you do compared to people that use a PayPal or stripe and those guys, right, right, I guess this would be the solution to avoid getting flagged as in any way, right?

Don Siclari  28:26

Yep. Yep. So we can automate that balancing for you, we can handle it for you. Or we can show you how to do it yourself.

Mostafa Hosseini  28:36

Love it. And then how long does it take for someone to switch from stripe or PayPal over to you guys? It

Don Siclari  28:46

depends on whether it’s an easy account or a complex account. Sometimes it takes a day. Sometimes it takes a week. If the client is not responding to documentation requests, it takes as long as it takes them to give us what we need.

Mostafa Hosseini  29:02

What would what would the what would be the complexity factor in there? What are some of the things that would make it a complex versus like a simple? Let’s switch a volume is

Don Siclari  29:11

a big one. I mean, if if you’re doing 50,000 a month, that’s a small account. If you’re doing you know million a month that’s a it’s a different animal to underwrite. So volume is a big one, the risk profile of the product, what is it? You know, is it a one year coaching package? Is it an ebook? You know, one year coaching practice means that there’s a liability period for 18 months, the client, your client can charge back six months after the last expected date of delivery.

If it’s an ebook and instant delivery, it’s a different risk because they put their card in and 10 seconds later they have the product. So all these things need to be taken into consideration along with financial history credit, you know, the traditional KYC know your client stuff.

Mostafa Hosseini  29:55

Got it so but they take good A version of your product or service right away. That seems to me like that’s a lower risk, much

Don Siclari  30:06

lower risk. It’s what we call MDX non delivery exposure, the longer the delivery timeframe is the greater the non delivery exposure.

Mostafa Hosseini  30:15

So if they charge like, like you said, if they if we charge upfront for a coaching thing, coaching package for a year, then that’s a high risk at a higher risk. Got it? Okay. Fantastic. So don’t sure tell us about the love some of your secrets about how you made a successful seven figure business over seems like a short span of time. Not

Don Siclari  30:40

as short as it would have been, if I had to do it over again, I was I was super teenager, when I started, it didn’t really know what I was doing. Like, if I had to do it over again, now it’d be much bigger, much faster. But my secret is networking. You know, I started networking at a very young age. When I was in middle school, I remember watching my cousin who was four years older than me, and he had all these, like older friends, he would go hang out with his neighbor who was in his 50s and had a Maserati and, and so forth.

And I learned early on that I that was the secret to life. My first martial arts teacher was very resourceful. He was a bodyguard for several world families. Very, very resourceful, and an excellent networker. So I copied him as well. And I started networking and building building networks. And that’s how I’ve grown the company. In the beginning, as I said, it was a matter of knocking on doors and making a lot of cold calls.

And I was a teenager, and super enthusiastic and DOE eyed and I’d walk into these businesses and say, you know, I had all these different strategies, I would try using NLP and so forth. But the gist of it was, you know, how are you handling your bad checks? And let me help you, you know, but then as, as I as I grew and evolved and built my networks now, most of my clients come in through referrals, they contact me, which is a better, a better place to be than having to knock on doors.

Mostafa Hosseini  31:59

For sure. Are you are you still networking? Well

Don Siclari  32:03

did. Yeah. This is right now, this is networking. I’m talking to you. And we’re doing this broadcast. And maybe some of your listeners will be interested in intrigued and reach out. And you know, you and I met through a networking group. And to me, that’s all networking.

Mostafa Hosseini  32:16

For sure. Can you give someone some tips on networking and people that are watching or listening that they could apply today that has been responsible for you for your success?

Don Siclari  32:27

I used to actually teach a course on on networking when I was younger. So I find that a lot of people don’t think through their network and think through it resourcefully. Meaning, people don’t look at all the people they know and look at them as resources, right? So I’m trying to think of an example. But there are people in our lives who can provide value can provide services that we need, or somebody that we know needs, that we’re not thinking about.

So my advice is, whenever you’re talking to somebody, make a note of what they do and what they offer and then immediately think of who else do you know that can benefit from that person’s service? And if it’s not you directly, somebody you know, Will. And, and I know that’s that’s kind of vague, I used to have an exercise where I would have people write out, you know, like, say 12 people in their lives and what those people do. And then within that group of 12, who would benefit from being introduced to somebody that they don’t already know?

Mostafa Hosseini  33:36

So then, do you go about introducing people first? Or do you wait to be introduced? Because I think that’s, that’s some of the internal blocks that I’ve seen people have was like, Hey, I’m gonna wait and see if you’re going to introduce me to a dozen people that aren’t gonna think about you.

Don Siclari  33:55

I don’t I make notes on what people do like when when you and I got off the phone and I learned what you do. I filed it in my in my head. And the next time I’m speaking with a client or not a client or any random human in the street, you know, who can use your service?

Click Show me that I go, Oh, you need to talk to Mostafa, you know, I was talking to one of our associates in JVM yesterday and immediately you know, when I found out what he did I I have a client that and connect with them immediately so it’s in my head it’s like always taking opportunity opportunity are connecting people I don’t wait regardless of whether they’re working with me or their clients or they may become clients or they may not become clients if if they can work together I’m plugging them in and hoping that they do good things in the world.

Mostafa Hosseini  34:41

Love it and it’s like you just go out there and you you put the good out there introduce people network and and being a connector and I’m guessing that they would probably do the same for you.

Don Siclari  34:53

That’s what the hope is, you know, you hope that it comes back around and and but the more people that you put together, the more opportunity there is all around.

Mostafa Hosseini  35:04

For sure, I’ve seen it like I was a BNI member forever. And I’m part of all different types of networking groups. What I noticed is like, even if you, let’s say that I’m going to introduce some someone to you, and you guys are going to do business, I may not necessarily get business or an introduction directly back from you. But because that’s what I’m, that’s, that’s what I’m putting out there. And going back, say to karma, I may get that from someone else.

Don Siclari  35:32

So what I used to do, is this another benefit of being an internet client, I’m constantly looking at how can I connect my clients, so I used to do a July 4, dinner cruise in New York City Harbor, where we’d have a live band, catered food and all that before the cruise, I’d have a for our mastermind group, and everybody who came would have the opportunity to stand up in front of the group and introduce their business and what they do.

So by the time they got on the boat, people already knew who they wanted to talk to. And it just turned into a fantastic evening, I stopped doing I stopped doing that when I moved to London because I was a little after I moved to London because I be pre COVID I would spend summers in Europe COVID kind of threw everything off. But But I still keep that networking in mind. So whenever a client signs on with us, I’m immediately I’m asking them, what are your needs, and then thinking who in my network or in my client portfolio could serve that need?

Mostafa Hosseini  36:27

Love it. So we promised people that a few things from this conversation and one one of them was how to take responsibility for your life? What’s your take on that? And how do you go about it? And how did that affect you? And your business? What was it before what was the after?

Don Siclari  36:48

Well, I think that from the time I started my business as a very unsure, you know, teenager, I didn’t really have a lot of confidence in my ability to be an entrepreneurs, I don’t know anything about it. I mean, it’s not something that I grew up with, you know, but immediately, I knew that I wanted to control the outcome of my life, I didn’t want to leave it in somebody else’s hands.

Actually, for the time I was young, I did that I told my parents what I wanted, I told my guidance counselors in school, which CLI walk in and hand them a schedule, everybody else would walk in, and they would create the schedule for the student, I’d walk in and hand them this is the classes I want, at the times I want make it happen, you know, so. So I think that it’s not something you have to be with you from a young age, anybody can learn it. But we live in a society where blaming, pointing fingers is is a hue is the way of things right.

So when I lived in Japan, if you’re you know, in a car accident in Japan, the first thing you do out do is get out and apologize profusely and take responsibility for it. In the US, the first thing you do is get out and tell the other person why it was their fault, because the lawyers are going to, you know, sue them. Yeah, and the lawyers are gonna get involved. So I think that a lot of our blaming mentality honestly comes from the litigious nature of our society.

So we need to kind of combat that dynamic of it by realizing that the most important person in charge of my life is me. And everything that happens to me is a result of me. And even if that’s not not true, in some cases, just doing that exercise, looking at everything, you know, that’s going on in your life as a result of an effect of a cause that you’ve created, is a really good, a really good way to start, you know, looking at how do we create and control the outcome, rather than be a victim of whatever we want to point the finger at.

Mostafa Hosseini  38:42

Very interesting. So just owning owning what you’re doing. And, and all of

Don Siclari  38:47

you one of my martial arts teachers early on said to me that every every conflict is a conflict with your own ego, even to the extent of getting attacked in a dark alley. And of course, I didn’t understand that at that age. And, you know, we can debate that all day long. And yes, bad things happen to good people and all of that. But the point was that when you start looking at everything in your life that happens to you, as some kind of effect of something you’ve created.

It’s dramatically empowering. And then there are, you know, the few things that the idiot runs the red light, you know, nearly hit you and you know, you’re pissed off. Yeah, I mean, that stuff happens, right? But, but just that exercise really gives us a lot of personal power.

Mostafa Hosseini  39:34

Love it. Yeah. I just put a question down. What am I what things might not taking responsibility for? And I don’t know, to me that would that would come up with a list of things that I’m not taking responsibility for. And I that probably I should. Yeah,

Don Siclari  39:53

I mean, it’s an exercise that we should all do all the time because we can always improve right so 100% 100%?

Mostafa Hosseini  40:00

How? How do you go about setting your mindset? About? We talked about the fact that you need to set your mind to do anything. And that’s possible. What’s your experience on that? And how did you do it? Oh, this

Don Siclari  40:19

is a good question. I had a few things to say about this. So, first of all, when I was 16, I realized that as people get older, they get more locked into their views, and less open minded to possibility and opportunity. And I made a decision at 16 that I never wanted to be that way, I always wanted to see the world through the mind of a teenager, which sometimes we call the child’s mind.

So I committed that for the rest of my life, I would always be doing new things, I would always the world be my oyster, you know, no matter what age I got to, I would take on new challenges and do new things, just as I did when I was a teenager, and everything looked, you know, amazing, like, we know, when we’re young, we want to be basketball stars, or princesses, or, you know, we aspire to all these really lofty things. And then as we go through life, we programming happens, and we can’t do that, for this reason, or that reason, or, um, you know, I would have loved to have, you know, learn to play the guitar. But now I’m, you know, too busy and too stressed, we make all these excuses.

 And that’s part of the taking responsibility. So the child’s mind is, is a big part of it, no matter how far you’ve advanced, in any particular arena, there’s more to learn. And, you know, I’ve talked to a few really advanced martial artists who’ve been training for know, for 50 years and a very high Dawn grades, black belts, and there are two or, you know, essentially white belts and other other art. So that shift into that beginner mindset is very empowering for people who are on that path. Now, a lot of times ego gets in the way and all of that. But that’s another conversation.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that I had to really shift my, my mindset to accommodate success. Because I grew up with grandparents and parents who, you know, my grandparents were from the Depression era, they constantly told me things like you don’t know the value of $1, save, save, save. I remember, when I was really young, my father had a book on exotic cars that was like six years old.

And I was like, I want a Lamborghini. And I told I told my grandmother, I want a Lamborghini, you don’t need no Guinea, you save your money for college, you know, and those were the answers. And I always got a shot down with all the things I aspired to just kind of traditional family and from that generation. So when I started, the checks started growing. Part of me had some deservingness issues, I didn’t believe that I deserved, you know, to be a millionaire, and to have this, this life that I had actually set out to create. And so I had to do some mindset shifting around that to accommodate more success and more opportunity.

Mostafa Hosseini  43:08

How did you go about mindset shifting? But that’s a big deal. And it’s, I believe, it’s a very big problem as well.

Don Siclari  43:18

I’d have to you know, that was a while ago, but but it was an ongoing process. One of the first things that happened was this particular martial arts teacher that inspired me to start the company who I mentioned, who was a networking inspiration, when I was younger, I asked him, I don’t know, if I asked him or he just told me,

but very early on in my career, how do I sort of think like, somebody that has a lot more money than I have, you know, and he said, Take five $100 bills, and put them in your wallet, and don’t spend them just every time you open your wallet, there’s $500, and, you know, this was 20 years ago, so $500 is worth a lot more than it is now maybe now it’s 10 $100 bills, you know, whatever. But having that reminder, in my pocket, in my wallet is more cash than I used to, begins to kind of shift the unconscious.

Mostafa Hosseini  44:18

Interesting. And

Don Siclari  44:19

then there were other things, you know, self reflection, working with my teachers and coaches and so forth. You know, looking at why, why am I sort of blocking growth to the next level? What’s what’s preventing that, you know, from happening, what part of the programming from childhood where you were, you were told you don’t know the value of $1 save, save, save, save, save, you know, so you just start to like, unwind that, that programming in reverse, and reprogram it with where I am now and what I want in my future.

Mostafa Hosseini  44:54

Love it. So you talked about there’s a question that I think is very important. And the question was Why Am I blocking growth? And then I think if you spent actually actually spend time, I’m actually going to do that today. If there’s there’s some areas that I feel like, I need to grow more, and there’s certain blockages.

And so I want to answer that question. You, you, you have been sharing a lot of good stuff here. Thank you. So the major question, Why Am I blocking growth?

Don Siclari  45:23

Why not add one more thing to that self sabotage is a very common trait. In America, we sabotage ourselves and why is probably a longer conversation than we have left in the show, but look for self sabotaging habits because they’re very insidious, and you won’t even realize you have them. Here’s an example, I have a friend, a very close friend who is blonde, and, you know, she’s, she’s very funny, but she’ll often say things like, you know, I’m, I’m retarded, I’m an ad and I’m blonde, and you know, and she’s saying and ingest to be funny. But that kind of language is very programming.

Yeah, and the unconscious starts to believe I’m retarded, I’m an idiot, you know, I’m, I’m a ditzy blonde, whatever. So just start to look at the words that you use and those kinds of habits that might be self sabotaging you

Mostafa Hosseini  46:18

know, another another another really golden nugget here is to take inventory of your inner talk or maybe your outer talk and actually write down the stuff that that is I went

Don Siclari  46:30

and I want to share something I’m going to pull up my my phone because I want to pull it out of this message. But a friend of mine who I really look up to and he I admire sent me this, this passage today, there are some basic and late summer i quotes I’ll post when they resurface, essentially, they say, quote, never say a bad thing about yourself, even in jest, and quote, and it has to do with how the unconscious gets programmed.

Mostafa Hosseini  46:58

I am, I’m actually going through a book called The Game of Life and how to play it. And think it wasn’t a section in the chapter called karma, where he talks about only say, or open your mouth about, about something along the lines of improvements success and, and adding positive things out there. And it’s very much a lot aligned with what you just talked about. Right.

But so I think an objection to that is like that’s really tough. I, you know, natural human tendency is like, Man, I got shit to deal with and you know, got up. And all the stuff that happens. And we’ve been programmed through the media through this and that friends. How do you do like, is that impossible? Probably not.

Don Siclari  47:54

I’m going to quote my girlfriend here. She was working through some, some stuff on her spiritual path recently. And I said, Well, unfortunately, you know, evolution ain’t comfortable. And she said, Say it louder for the people in the back. It’s that’s the thing, you know, getting out of your comfort zone is not comfortable by definition.

So you have to be prepared for what those moments are going to feel like it’s not all, you know, fun and games and cakewalk. If you want to grow and evolve, you got to deal with your shit, which is, you know, your, what Carl Jung would call the shadow side, digging into it opening cans of worms can open cans of worms. And here’s what I tell people, you know, yes.

And, but don’t try to do it all at once. I know people that are like, you know, I’m so obsessed with personal development. I’m not developing fast enough, I got this, this. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself, give yourself room, you have your whole life to do this. So unless you’re at 92 Right now, you’ve got a lot of time to work on this process.

Mostafa Hosseini  48:59

For sure, but then I think people are always in a hurry to get things done,

Don Siclari  49:05

I would say yeah, on that patience is key. Patience and tenacity are the two keys if you’re going if you’re in a hurry, you’re going to short circuit the process.

Mostafa Hosseini  49:18

For sure, what’s your take on planning and when and what people should do and reaching their goals and visions and dreams and the rest of it?

Don Siclari  49:31

I have a little different take on that than most. I don’t believe necessarily in setting goals in time. Because meaning we cannot we can cannot as the wrong word. You can do whatever you want. But when we when we give the universe instructions and demanded conform to the parameters that we put around it. We’re limiting ourselves I’m much more in favor of have Taking a vision, putting it out to the universe, looking for the opportunities.

The biggest key, in my opinion is taking your foot off the brake. So getting rid of those self sabotaging habits, and then giving the universe room to provide what you’ve asked for on its terms, because it’s bigger than us, it knows more than we do. So if I say I want, you know, a red BMW 2,019x, three with 21,000 miles on it for $22,000 by next week. That’s different than saying, you know, I really want a really cool SUV, my perfect car. What do I need to do to have that, and then making the space for it to come along?

Mostafa Hosseini  50:48

Absolutely. I think we got to be reasonable, right?

Don Siclari  50:51

So so vision boards, and you know, I’m not opposed to writing out visions and so forth. But I’ve been to some people’s houses where the vision boards are so cluttered, there’s so much on there, and it’s so exact and precise. That I don’t necessarily tell them this, but I see it and I’m like, this ain’t never gonna happen.

Mostafa Hosseini  51:12

Good luck with that. Yeah. Exactly. Like you got it a little too complicated here. Interesting. So, but also hear stories of people that have put vision boards, and they’ve got a exactly what they put on the vision board. Absolutely. So I guess the message was there, what you said was to not make it too complicated. Like, there’s five different walls, and each wall has 12 different vision boards on it. It’s like, Dude, you’re just complicated the process.

Don Siclari  51:43

I’ve gotten everything on my bucket list in life. I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do so far. And yeah, I mean, it’s certainly possible. It’s just a matter of, in my opinion, creating the space for it, getting rid of the obstacles that are blocking you and being patient.

Mostafa Hosseini  52:00

Yeah, you talked about patients? Is there anything on your on your bucket list that you’re like, I wonder why this is not happening.

Don Siclari  52:07

Not that I wonder why it’s not happening. Because I know, there are things that I’ve been set back back from timewise. Because the pandemic disrupted a bunch of things. For example, I had a vice president running my company, for a number of reasons the pandemic caused, I lost him during the pandemic. And so now I’m back to running and get that was not in my plan.

So I’ve had to shift and get back to running the business again. So things come along that are outside of our control. So there are things I’ve had to put off that I was well on my way to doing. But I don’t wonder why they didn’t happen, because I know it’s obvious.

Mostafa Hosseini  52:46

For sure. Love it. Where can people find out more about you? So

Don Siclari  52:53

I’m releasing, I’m in the process of building personal hub site, which has links to all my projects and social media, and contact information that will be ready in about a week from today. And today’s August 3, I think. So that’ll be Dj C clari.com. My name in checks website is alive and well. In check in check, dotnet i n ch, e k, there’s no see, I thought I was going to be clever. And it ended up causing more confusion having to spell it out all the time.

But in check.net, I n ch e k.net has contact information for me and the story of in check and how to reach us and so forth. And then, but all my social media and everything will be linked on the DJ cyclery.com site when it’s finished. Fantastic.

Mostafa Hosseini  53:40

So again, the website is in check without a c.net. So tight n ch e k, precisely. If you wanted to reach out and get maybe your dears offer an assessment of what’s happening with their 100%.

Don Siclari  53:58

So the best way to do that is if you go to in check.net, there’s an apply now tab. And don’t be intimidated by that you’re not actually applying for anything. It’s about seven fields of information like your name, your phone number, your email, your website, how much volume you need per month, fill that out, that opens a lead in our CRM, which is the first step and then we reach out and then from there, we can have a conversation.

In order to do an assessment. I’ll need some information. I’ll need a processing statement all that will be in the follow up email. We’ll have a conversation and then you’re not obligated by any means we can decide if if you want to work with us or not. But the first step is that apply now link is it automates everything?

Mostafa Hosseini  54:41

For sure. So let’s let’s consider that as your gift for our audiences a complimentary is that complimentary? Absolutely.

Don Siclari  54:50

Absolutely. I will jump on the phone with with anybody who wants to discuss their processing needs. I mean, it’s unusual for the CEO of a company to do but since I’m on this podcast happy to do it personally so we can talk about your needs and no charge. Absolutely.

Mostafa Hosseini  55:06

So going there visiting check in check.com, click on Apply Now. dotnet not net, I apologize, Inc, in tech dotnet without a C, and C at the end. So I n ch e k.net. Click on Apply now and get your complimentary assessment on your purchase morass merchant processing and see if there is any any way shape or form that maybe you could save fees, get better service Get, get more uptime and all the rest of it. Don, can I ask you a couple of questions, personal questions before we wrap up? Depends

Don Siclari  55:48

on what they are.

Mostafa Hosseini  55:50

Let’s see. So what’s that? What’s a new thing you have tried recently? Big or small?

Don Siclari  55:55

A new thing I’ve tried recently. Um, what’s a new thing I’ve tried to recently

Mostafa Hosseini  56:02

Ah, thank food visiting a place

Don Siclari  56:06

some New Finland I just got back from Newfoundland. And Newfoundland is really interesting. It is the furthest point east in North and South America. It’s the oldest city in this hemisphere, and it has a 30 minute timezone differential. So it’s 90 minutes past Eastern Time.

Mostafa Hosseini  56:28

Interest, I did not know that. 30 minute times in differential love it. What are your top two favorite books of all time?

Don Siclari  56:38

So the number one and ready for this? This is what I tell people. If if you read this book and take it to heart, you won’t need a whole lot of other self development books. This book covers it all. It’s called craft with a warrior by Robert Spencer, craft of the warrior.

Mostafa Hosseini  56:59

Robert Spencer.

Don Siclari  57:01

Yep. Read it a few times.

Mostafa Hosseini  57:06

And then what else? Is

Don Siclari  57:07

there any other Well, another one that really kind of formed my customer service model early on was called raving fans. By I think it was Ken Blanchard. But it talks about how to create not just happy customers but raving fans.

Mostafa Hosseini  57:26

Are your raving fans. All right? What’s one advice that made a massive impact on your life or business?

Don Siclari  57:33

Oh, I saw a lot of that.

Mostafa Hosseini  57:38

A big one like 8020 type of like this one was massive for me. Yeah, I’m

Don Siclari  57:43

thinking I’m trying to think of what comes to mind. Yeah, okay. So one of my teachers once told me that learning is a process of taking on whereas mastery is a process of letting go.

Mostafa Hosseini  58:03

What do you mean?

Don Siclari  58:05

He didn’t he didn’t explain it to me, I had to it was a riddle I had to work on. So maybe we’ll maybe we’ll leave it at that let people interpreted and within the context of their own lives.

Mostafa Hosseini  58:17

I did not apply to you, what did you have to let go of

Don Siclari  58:21

lots of things. One of them was the desire, like I said earlier, to have to keep feeling like I’m making progress all day, every day, right. So like I said, I know people that are in personal development that are so obsessive about it, that they’re blocking themselves, because it’s all they focus on. Sometimes we need to like I said earlier, you put a vision out there, and then you let it go and give the universe room to, to bring it into you the whole patience thing again.

So letting go of the need, need to need an expectation to have things happen a certain way, at a certain time. And the need to feel an emotional response from those things. So if you think about it, people who are totally obsessed with having to do this or that it’s because it creates a certain emotional response. And it causes them to feel whatever they need to feel. So they feel like they’re making progress, that they’re doing something others aren’t doing whatever.

Those are all feelings that are fleeting, emotional feelings that are fleeting. When you’re making progress, you know it internally, your life reflects it. And the people that I know that embody that are very easygoing. They are very oftentimes, they’re the ones who aren’t even talking about it or talking the most. I remember when I met my, one of my spiritual teachers who was a Japanese monk when I was a teenager. I sat down with him.

And I had all these questions because I was very intellectual. And I wanted to ask all these questions that he wouldn’t answer and things like that. But when I first sat down with him, I was kind of surprised, because he was more interested in talking about the fact that my family is Italian, what my parents do, you know, very what I thought were mundane things, or I thought he was gonna talk about all these really deep philosophical things.

But no, he was just having a normal conversation. So that was formative for me as well, kind of seeing how he interacts with the world as a legitimate spiritual master. Not a lot of talking and chit chatting, and demand and expectation and intensity, just very chill. And he someone who embodies, you know, the wisdom of everything that he studied. So I don’t know if that if that helps. But that’s maybe related to the letting go versus taking on. Riddle.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:01:00

How do you identify? Like, what was that process? Like for you? How did you because this is a big deal, this letting go thing as that because and I noticed that when I when I have? By the way, I put this question down, what do I need to go to let go off, and I’ll probably have it listed, I need to let go up. But every time I let go of things, I have this relaxation in my mind and my body and my shoulders and my neck, and my back. It’s like mental and physical. How do you determine what you need to? Or how have you determined what you need to let go up?

Don Siclari  1:01:45

It’s been a process obviously, working with my own teachers and within my own life, noticing how obsessing about things creates tension, like you’re talking about, you know, and bodywork and massage, there’s a saying the issues are in the tissues. So those emotional blocks and create physical tensions. And like you said, when you release them, the body releases, it’s all connected, mental, physical, psychological, spiritual.

So the ironic thing is that focusing too much on letting go is not letting go. So how do we find a way to do this? How do we let go by it by letting go, it’s, it’s something I think that each person needs to discover for him or herself. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:02:38

I know, like, we just did spring cleaning, and I let go of probably or five or six truckloads of stuff out of our house, and I’m like, Oh, my garage, basement, the closets. Desna some of the stuff, I had some attachment, I’m like, I’m not using this, I put in there.

So that someone else could use this, whether it was a piece of clothing, or dishes or whatever. But then when I let go around, I’m like, oh my god, this is amazing. I opened up space and there’s that great feeling of actually helping someone and and

Don Siclari  1:03:13

I think you hit on something very important. The laws of the spiritual mirror the laws of the physical. So a great process for letting go is literally what you just said, cleaning your space, organizing cleaning your space, because when you keep your space organized and clean, you keep your energies organized and clean, the two mirror each other and when you let go of physical things, you let go of emotional attachments to those physical things, which let go of blocks those emotional attachments were causing. So that might be a great actual physical exercise that that people can do. Love

Mostafa Hosseini  1:03:50

1. So two questions out of this. The reason discussion was what do I need to let go of and the second one I wrote it down is where do I create or have tension that I need to let go off? Good one and so I’m going to work on that so last question is if you had a Facebook or Google ad, where everyone on the planet with access to internet could see what would your message be for the people there

Don Siclari  1:04:13

wow, I didn’t I’m on the spot I didn’t get any time to prepare for this one. i There’s so many ways I can go with this. How would I distill that down?

Mostafa Hosseini  1:04:27

One message one message

Don Siclari  1:04:33

I’m I’m synthesizing and in my head I would say to reflect on how you can bring more light to the world by not obsessing about it. So again, this whole letting go chasing things in your everyday life. How can you contribute to the world and that might be something like, you know, making the cashier at Starbucks laugh, you know, it doesn’t have to be, I’m going to, you know, heal our billion people or you know, whatever, the little things, and you don’t know the domino effects of those little things, you know, everything has domino effects. So, by doing that, you also, it’s more impactful than it sounds because you’re also checking your own ego getting out of your own head.

Right? You’re, you’re connected to the world around you, if that makes any sense, rather than comparing yourself so I like to say that Americans are American society is characterized by competitive insecurity. Everybody’s looking at everybody else and competing. And, you know, how do I get Keeping Up with the Joneses?

How do I get more what they have, this guy’s got more money, this guy’s better looking this girl you know is better at soccer, whatever the case might be. To avoid all that comparison. We have to get out of our own way and accept and be happy and be comfortable with where we are in life. And that comes from having created what you want.

And we already talked, everything we’ve already talked about, leads to that process. So in your everyday life, when you’re considering how do I add more light to the world, which some may call value or happiness or cheer whatever word you want to use your hours outside of your own ego and more connected to the world around you. Love it. Love

Mostafa Hosseini  1:06:37

1. Love it. Love it. Don, this has been a really good conversation, you shared a lot of nuggets of wisdom, and a lot of good information. Thank you for that. Is there anything that you want to share that we didn’t get a chance to talk about?

Don Siclari  1:06:53

I don’t I don’t think so. We went on a lot of different roads and and, you know, we could always talk again, if there’s round two or whatever. But I think that’s quite a lot of stuff that we dug out. So yeah,

Mostafa Hosseini  1:07:05

for sure. We dug out a lot there was a lot of good questions in there. You shared a lot of good processes. So gang if you’re watching or listening, go back to the show, review everything. And if you need help with your payment processing, Devon definitely reach out to Don and his team and they’ll set you up and get you all going and provide a good service to you guys.

Thank you Don, for joining me. Thank you again for joining us. If you have any questions about this whole process of what we talked about, put them in a comment below. If you know someone that could benefit from this conversation other the spiritual part or the money side of things, send them the link or tag them in a comment below.

And as usual, please like and subscribe to the show on whichever channel you’re watching or listening. And I look forward to seeing you in our next episode. Thank you for joining us. You’ve been listening to daily confidence for entrepreneurs. Bye now.