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Featuring: George Rivera
In episode 171, I sit down with George Rivera, a 31-year direct response and e-commerce veteran who now helps cash-rich, time-poor founders escape what he calls the founder prison.
George shares the deathbed advice from his father that became his wake-up call, and the three years it took him to redesign a business that ran entirely through him. We dig into his freedom audit, the $10K per hour filter, and his time liberation trifecta of eliminating, automating, and delegating. We also talk about the 18 summers reality, why founders unknowingly become the bottleneck, and what to do when it feels like there is nobody to delegate to.
Agency owners will walk away with a clear process for auditing where their time goes and a better way to delegate outcomes instead of tasks. George also explains why stepping back in after you hand something off quietly undermines your team, and why the businesses we build should give us more time with the people who matter most.
Key Bytes
• You can always make more money, but you can never redo a childhood.
• Cash rich means successful on paper; time poor means your family gets the leftovers.
• A successful business can still be poorly designed if every decision runs through you.
• Put a dollar value on your hour, and the tasks you should stop doing become obvious.
• Delegate outcomes, not tasks, and show people what done looks like.
• Saying you have nobody to delegate to is the clearest sign you need the audit.
• Assign it and get out of the way, because jumping back in tells your team you don't trust them.
• You are either scaling freedom or scaling chaos.
Chapters
00:00 Welcome and George's story
02:05 The deathbed advice that changed everything
04:09 Hitting the breaking point: exit or burn it down
05:46 The freedom audit and the $10K per hour filter
10:53 The 18 summers reality
12:48 Why founders unknowingly become the bottleneck
15:16 What to do when you have nobody to delegate to
17:34 Delegating outcomes with Loom, AI, and living SOPs
22:09 When the founder would rather stay in the craft
24:08 Rapid fire: morning routines, old beliefs, and scaling freedom
George Rivera is a founder, operator, and father who has spent 31+ years in direct response, ecommerce, and online sales, generating over $400M and building a company past $200M. After realizing success was quietly costing too much at home, his father’s words, “Don’t miss Leo’s games. I missed too many of yours,” became the filter for his next chapter. Today George helps cash-rich, time-poor founders escape founder prison, remove themselves as the bottleneck, and build businesses that can grow without stealing the best of them from their families.
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Steve Guberman (00:01.43)
Welcome to Agency Bytes. I'm your host, Steve Guberman from Agency Outsite, where I help agency leaders turn their businesses into an asset they can grow, sell, or actually enjoy. This week, my guest is George Rivera. He spent 31 plus years in direct response and e-commerce, generating over $400 million in building a company past $200 million. After nearly nearly missing his son Leo's game, chasing that success, he now helps cash-rich, time-poor founders escape the founder prison and
And build businesses that don't require sacrificing their families. Very similar story I know a lot about and a lot of my clients know all about. And so I'm excited to dig into this. George, welcome to Agency Bytes.
George Rivera (00:39.758)
Thank you, Steve. Excited to be here.
Steve Guberman (00:42.038)
Yeah, so I gave that much of a a backstory, give kind of the the full George Rivera backstory.
George Rivera (00:47.97)
Yeah, so yeah, like you said, 31 years online, 400 million in sales, but nearly lost my family in the process. so it's it's got its pros and cons, its highs and lows. yeah, been an entrepreneur ever since the mid-90s. I started in the supplement space, direct response. That's been primarily most of my career. always incorporated a lot of multi-channel marketing. I I never forget my original direct response, direct mail, newspaper classified ad roots.
and I've I've always just integrated that with the online stuff. So that's been really well. And I've had a a major career shift, I'd say, over the last year. like you said, you know, looking to help serve people who are cash rich, time poor. what does that mean? cash rich means successful on paper, time poor means business gets all of your time and family gets the leftovers. And so quick parallel story on that.
you know, my dad was diagnosed with cancer back in twenty fifteen and a couple of weeks before he passed away there, he said, Don't miss Leo's games, I miss too many of yours, like a deathbed confession. And yeah, it it was like a ton of bricks hitting me. And so yeah, we'll we'll just kind of pick it up wherever you like from there.
Steve Guberman (02:05.601)
Yeah. man, that's heavy stuff. and like thanks to Dad for that insight, right? 'Cause that that can either it well, thanks to him for the insight, but like also your point of gratitude, I guess, for acknowledging it, 'cause a lot of people be like, Yeah, yeah, Dad, I'm good and stay eighty hours a week in the business. Right? That
George Rivera (02:25.698)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That was the wake-up haul that I needed. Cause like when he said that, like I said, hit me like a ton of bricks. I was instantly transported back to my old high school gym where I played in about forty basketball games and he only went to one of And you know, by the time you're in high school, you you know, you know, who your parents are, so I shouldn't be shocked that my dad was just this hustler, gr grinder, sort of like check writer provider.
But yeah, I'd see my my teammates like all their dads were there for all the games, scoring after their kids you know, or cheering like they won the championship after every score, scoring a basket. And I was like, man, I was looking at another dad loving on his son and I was like, I wish that was my dad. And I would have crushed my dad because he was a really good man, but he was the cash-rich time poor person that you know I later became and now I'm looking to serve. So
Nice closure to whatever that was, but now I'm staring in the face of this is where my future's headed if I don't make a change. And I was like, Yep, I I'm on board. Let's do this. Let's change this and not repeat that mistake. But I'm I'm gonna have to like start this whole changing my life thing tomorrow because I'm working sixteen hours today. And sometimes tomorrow means never, but in my case tomorrow meant, you know, three years and yeah, it can kind of go wherever you want from there.
Steve Guberman (03:40.104)
All right, so break that down. It took three years for you to restructure, I guess, the business or the systems or the people or all of the above so that you could you know, three years of having your eye on the prize of art, the goal is X amount of time not working or X amount of time only working. what were we can get into the nuts and bolts from the door, what were some of the things that you outlined like over the course of time, I've got to change these things so that I can have X is the goal. X is the goal of going to every game or time off or whatever.
George Rivera (04:09.76)
Absolutely, yeah. So like I said, it took three years and I reached this breaking point. I was scaling my business to numbers I'd only dreamed about, literally printing money. money's not a concern or a problem, which isn't a nice thing to have in life, but at the same time hating my life, which I know hates a strong word, but I don't know how else to explain having like my family like ripped away from me. And so I came to the point where I either want to like exit this thing or I'm wanna burn it down to the ground, but I'm like done. I'm finally ready to like get my life back like my dad told me to.
And you know, I can't sell a business overnight. That's not a realistic thing. It's a multi-year process, especially a complex one like mine. so that's not gonna fix my problem tomorrow. But I thought, hey, I could burn it down. That'll get me my family back, my sanity. I can rebuild, restore, and and and sort of like go from there. bad idea though. I already had a successful business. it was just poorly designed. It had me being at the at the center of it. Every approval, every decision had to run through me. And, you know, that that was
You know, I built myself in in what I call the founder prison and that was not a lifestyle that I could sustain for very long. And so yeah, first thing I did, I had to shine a light on the activities that I was doing and essentially identify the things that I can get off my plate. And there's a whole process to doing all that, but yeah, that was the first step that I did in in regaining my freedom. And from that point to having total freedom was almost a two year process. And so happy to get into any details there.
Steve Guberman (05:34.785)
Yeah. Can you talk about the exercise that you went through to identify what you should and shouldn't be doing? 'Cause I've taken some founders through it and it's different for a lot of people. So I'm curious what your process was there.
George Rivera (05:41.645)
Yeah, so
George Rivera (05:46.381)
Sure, it's what I call a freedom audit and and really it's I suggest people take as long as two weeks, but in the first couple of days you're gonna identify a lot of low-hanging fruit things that you you shouldn't be doing. but two weeks will give us a full snapshot. And then what I do is I I assign my time a a dollar per hour value and I call it the ten K per hour filter.
When I'm in my zone at my peak, my time's worth 10,000 an hour. Maybe one of your listeners, they're 100k per hour, or maybe another one's kind of starting out. Maybe it's $100 an hour. But figure out what that number is, then take all the things you're doing and running through that filter, and then you're gonna be left with a lot of things that you shouldn't be doing that you can get done for much less than what your time is worth. And then
Steve Guberman (06:07.531)
Okay.
George Rivera (06:28.854)
You put it through what I call the time liberation trifecta, which are three things, the only three things you could do with any task that you shouldn't do, which is eliminate anything that doesn't move the needle, repeat I'm sorry, anything that repeats, you can automate it and then delegate things, but delegate with outcomes in mind versus just delegating tasks. And those, of course, have their own breakdowns there, but at at a high level, running through that process, I was able to get
all all other things I shouldn't be doing off my plate. And that for me, I was working 90 hour work weeks. It took my took my weeks down at least 50 hours. So I was left with 40 hours, which is still a full-time you know job essentially. But now with those 40 hours really compressed down to 20 hours because now I'm working with less stress. I'm working in my zone of genius.
Steve Guberman (07:06.752)
Wow.
George Rivera (07:19.75)
less context switching, which is a killer of productivity. So, like I'm working in my zone of genius marketing and expansion, and then I'm getting a message over here about a customer refund or can you sign this merchant app or just something completely different? I'm like completely derailed and it takes an average of 30 minutes to get back. And then you you lose steam and focus. And so in reality, I I think it's an exponential loss, but they've said it's as much as 30 minutes.
Steve Guberman (07:21.857)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
George Rivera (07:44.909)
And then you know imagine being interrupted five, 10 times a day. That's hours of of wasted and killed productivity per day. And then when you really intend to check out at five or six, it starts to bleed over another fan than the time that should be family time. And so yeah, it was a bit of a disarray. So I'm thankful that I I was able to do some of those initial steps to get my my freedom back.
Steve Guberman (08:05.495)
To me, yeah. So I have a similar exercise on my website. People can download. I think you've got one on your website. It's the buyback your buybacktimeformula.com slash freedom. under on my site, it's I call it the owner's audit. And it's the same process. you you jump it way high, which I love the value add to the hour. I'm like, founders should be focusing on the thousand dollar an hour thing. And you're like 10,000, 100,000. I love that. but yeah, it's the same thing. Before the world of automations, it was due delegate or delete.
Right. Those were like the things that I was taught. Like something comes in, do it. If if it takes you under two minutes, just bang it out and do it, delegate it, delete it. the I I'm thinking about like at at scale, at the scale that you were, so you had a business that was of massive value, you couldn't just fire sale it because it takes time to sell. You couldn't you didn't want to shut it down. You had something, you wanted to keep it going. By the time you get to that, by the time most businesses get to the size you were, I don't
I don't want to generalize, but I do think most founders have figured out how to delegate more than maybe you had. And I don't know the details. But I think of the arc of an entrepreneur. And I'm gonna launch something, I'm gonna do everything on day one. And next step I'm gonna hire somebody to do my marketing, I'm gonna hire somebody to do my sales, I'm gonna hire somebody to build the product. And so I'm delegating these things out based on what the roadmap of the company or the product is. And so many founders, so many entrepreneurs
If they're accidental entrepreneurs prime primarily, they just keep so much on their plate, no matter the scale they get to, and become the bottleneck. And when they and when they hit that point of realization of like, this sucks, right? Father on the deathbed saying better change something, or their own realization, their own wake up call, whatever. that process is so different for everybody. And so personal of like, all right, let me stop. What do I want to be doing? And it's either I'm not making any money, I have no time.
I don't have the flexibility that I thought I would have. What's the point of owning a business if I'm not making all this money and or I don't have the time or I'm saying yes to every client? Like that was my story also. so that personal process of going through this and saying, all right, what do I really want to be doing? The goals can be different for everybody. It can be, I have a client now I'm working with, she's like, I want to stop working at three o'clock every day and not look at my phone until the next morning so I can be present for my kids.
Steve Guberman (10:27.095)
Because they're growing up and they're gonna be gone soon and I don't wanna miss it. There's others that are like, I wanna only work 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week so I can have dinner or lunch or whatever with my significant other. So the goals are very specific. And you talk about the 18 summers, like the reality of it, and how business should really give them the freedom to do the things that matter most. So talk about like that theory for you, the 18. That's a long-winded way to get to. Tell us about your 18 summers reality.
George Rivera (10:53.46)
Absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, eighteen summers, you know, long story short, at day zero when you have your child, you only get eighteen summers with them. And most people, most founders, when they realize and they absorb the concept of eighteen summers, it's like, my gosh, they're doing the numbers like with their fingers. my gosh, I got three summers left or one, or I'm out of summers. And so it's just it's to illustrate how limited time we have with our children.
Steve Guberman (11:14.583)
Mm-hmm.
George Rivera (11:19.654)
And and I have a saying that we, you know, we can always go out there and make more money, but we can never redo a childhood. And so it's just it just goes to to illustrate how little time we have and how important it is that we we're aware of how much we have left and we make the best of it.
Steve Guberman (11:33.9)
Yeah, you know, I remember vividly my family, we've always done beach vacations and I remember vividly walking with my brother. He's my best friend, he's an entrepreneur himself, works way more than I think he should, but I also fish way more than he he thinks I should. So there's balance there. But being on vacation, him him telling me the same thing, like, dude, there's only X amount of vacations left till the kids are gone. And now is right now his kid just went off to her first year at school. And so it's that that's it. His next kid's a senior.
My kid's 21. So like those vacations are over. and they went by like that. But I remember having that conversation with him. And yeah, it goes by super quick and you don't get them back. And so how do we use the these businesses that we're building to give us the time that we want, to buy back our time? Thanks, Dan Martel, for that. Like and and and build the systems that allow us. So you talk a lot about founders.
being unlo unknowingly becoming the bottleneck. And like do you think that unknowingness, unknowing part of it is more of an accidental entrepreneur? Is it an ego thing? It is a fear of delegation. What stops us 'cause I've been guilty of it, what stops us from delegating?
George Rivera (12:48.426)
And I I've seen all of that, even in the same person, even thinking about myself. Some of it is just like not knowing better. That that could sort of be an initial excuse. Another thing could be like you think you're the only one that can do this, which is another. another one is y you know, for example, childhood wounds can come into play. Like, you know, I remember I used to try to seek my father's approval, and even after he passed away, I was still acting in a manner that was seeking his approval. That's why I was putting out all the fires.
you know, for my company, instead of putting a structure where, you know, they I could empower them to make decisions on their own. I was addicted at being the hero, at getting the praise. And there's a little bit of a dopamine hit that comes along with, Hey, George, you're awesome, you put the fire out. And I'm like, Okay, yay, great. And but I realized that you know, that time and that focus there like robbed from my family essentially. Usually, you know, these are things that I shouldn't be doing, but but there's a little bit of a rush. So
Yeah, I think it's a combination and you could probably call that some ego as well. So I I think it's a combination of all of those. And and and then of course you have like one's nervous system. You know, we're always like reactive and just waiting and and almost like just like addicted to checking our phone and the emails to see if if our business is still okay. when in reality, like most of the stuff we worry and stress about usually just never happens, especially the way that we play it out in our minds. So
Yeah, I think it's just a combination of all of those things. And what I usually tell people is just get a little bit of a taste of getting some of your time back by delegating some of the things you don't like. And you'll just become addicted to it. And then once I see founders get their time back, they need to make sure that they're protecting the guardrails that they have in place and respecting those boundaries. Cause the biggest mistake I see is all right, we got all this time back, and then hey, let's just go launch another business or get into somewhere else. And you know, it's their life. They can do what they want. But
they're they're just getting right back into the thing that we fought so hard to to to protect. And so you just gotta have guardrails respected. You know, people are like, Well, can I just can I never start a business says? No, of course you can, as long as it fits the boundaries that you set. Like I'm say only thirty hours a week. Well, if you can, you know, orchestrate your week to where you can, you know, manage that business and whatever your role's gonna be in it in that time, then I'd say go for it. But
George Rivera (15:02.71)
If you truly wanna have a have that balanced, you know, life in in, you know, business is family and and everything you say is important, then y you know, sometimes you have to say no to certain things. So yeah, I think it's a combination of all that you said earlier.
Steve Guberman (15:16.703)
One of the biggest pushbacks I get, so I'll tell a client or a friend or whatever, go do this owner's audit, come back with the things that you should be doing, your zone of genius, when you should be doing it, how you should be doing it, delegate the rest. The biggest pushback I get, whether it's a solo whether it's like a a one person shop or a hundred person shop, I have nobody to delegate it to. Either I don't have employees or anybody to delegate it to, or everybody on my team is already overworked, overstressed.
spread too thin. Like, so what do you tell people who claim they have nobody to delegate to?
George Rivera (15:50.563)
Yeah. th it it's it's poor leadership, poor management. maybe there needs to be an operations person in there. I'd have to dig deeper at the situation, but yeah, I would just say just your s whole situation sounds terrible and and yeah, i if anything, if that's what you're saying, then you need the audit more than you know, if if you're coming back with that kind of response. that that's that's where I'd start.
Steve Guberman (16:12.213)
Yeah. Yeah. I often say like, all right, if you don't have anybody, think about and so it's an investment, right? So if I'm gonna free up twenty hours of my time and my time is worth a thousand dollars an hour, you know, twenty times a thousand, what's that, two hundred thousand dollars? I've just freed up the potential of that much investment. And so can I invest that money into somebody that that I can delegate to or systems or people or a combination of the two. And it doesn't need to be a full time employee. I mean, there's VAs, there's automation systems, things like that.
but you know when we when we whittle down what the founder's core job should be, right? If you follow the e myth or any of these like leadership books or entrepreneurial books, like have the vision, clear away the obstacles, and provide support for whatever your team needs to execute. Most founders think I, you know, I'm a designer, I'm gonna open a design shop. Well, th they shouldn't be designers if they are the fo if they are the owner. In most cases. Not in in it's not universal, but
So getting them out of the day to day of what they think they should be doing, that's the goal here. And now I've got, to your point, I've got twenty hours extra that I can focus on the thing I'm really good at, closing business or like the thing that I love doing. where do you where do you think founders go wrong once they have delegated where they still think like, man, shit, I haven't haven't really figured it out. It's not working.
George Rivera (17:34.115)
Yeah, where they fail at it, I I believe it's in how they you know instruct or or actually like package the information down to the person they're delegating to not being clear and not even showing what the outcome is supposed to look like. I believe you show them what the outcome looks like, you create a process that allows them to get to the outcome, give them the liberty, if they can get there more efficiently, to you know, explore doing that as well. but at the very least give them a pathway to get to the outcome that you look for.
Steve Guberman (17:54.199)
Mm-hmm.
George Rivera (18:04.442)
that way they have a repeatable way to do it. And and the way that I do it is, you know, we've got, you know, Loom screen share, for example. I might, you know, record a Loom of the task that I want done, just an example. And you know, it'll produce a transcript. I'll take that transcript, I'll put it in Chat GPT or Claude, take your favorite AI and I'll say, make a beautiful SOP out of this thing. It'll create just this amazing SOP that used to take, you know, hours or days or weeks back in back in the old days of three years ago. And
Steve Guberman (18:25.089)
Mm-hmm.
George Rivera (18:32.672)
I take that, I put it on a Google Doc that can always be updated over time. And then I'll take that Loom video, pop it there, and I'm like, here's our process. I just recorded it. Take 10 minutes to just go through it. Let me know if you understand. I'm standing by. And you know, AI doesn't get it perfect, and you just did it. So you want to make sure they fully understand. They ask a question, clarify, tweak the SLP if you need to. okay, got it, good. You own this thing. I should never, ever, ever see this unless like we change part of the process, a vendor change.
but there'll be a time when when we will discuss if this changes. So like, yeah, you got it. It's yours. And and that's that's how I do it.
Steve Guberman (19:10.699)
Yeah, I think it's maybe Brene Brown. She talks about like you need to ask your team specifically what it is that I want from you. Like here's the expectation and what do you need from me to be successful? So back to like the job of a CEO is like clear the way of obstacles and provide them the tools for success. That's on an emotional level, it's on a tactical level, a technical, like on all levels, founders need to be showing up on that in that way when they want to get these things off their plates.
Do you think there are things that like founders just like suck more than other things that like they can't let go or they want to hold on to or they wanna be the hero or like whatever that thing is?
George Rivera (19:49.945)
Totally. Yeah. Talked about how I was addicted to being the hero. But I would also just say getting in the way. Like if you're gonna delegate it and and show them what the outcome looks like, let them do it. You know, and if if you've you know, I I've seen some founders, and I might have been guilty of this myself, is here, here's your task, and then all of a sudden I've got some free time, I just bang it out for them. Hey, no worries, I took care of it. And it's like you don't wanna train your team that you are just gonna end up doing their work for them, you know. So that that's wrong on multiple levels. so yeah, things like that. Just like
Steve Guberman (20:09.847)
Mm-hmm.
George Rivera (20:19.264)
Assign it and get out of the way versus assigning it and then try to tinker after that. It plus it's it shows them that you have little confidence in them. It it's bad for multiple reasons.
Steve Guberman (20:28.961)
Yeah. I'm gonna wrap myself out. I did that last week. And I firmly believe and I say it all the time to my clients, delegate and then trust the people and the process that you put in place. Get out of the way. Don't micromanage. Give them the autonomy to either s rock at it or fail at it and then figure it out. I had this great idea and I was messaging Veronica, my marketing and automation person, and I was like, here's what I'd love for us to do, here's the idea. And then I went and clawed and I figured it out and I built this and I
tinkered with dad and I failed here and I tried again and I messaged her like two hours later. I'm like, never mind, I figured it out. And I felt so bad because like she loves doing that stuff and she's really good at it. And those were two hours I could have been doing the ten thousand dollar an hour stuff. You know, and I didn't. And I totally apologized to her on our next call. I like, man, I she was like, What do you want me do about this thing? I'm like, I'm sorry, I did it. And I shouldn't have
George Rivera (21:17.006)
Hmm. Hey, I you know, we we all fall into that, ev even if we've sort of figured it out. it's just human nature sometimes to fall there and you know, I I'd say, Hey, once in a while is okay as long as it's not how you do it daily and you you owned it up and you told her. So yeah, I think
Steve Guberman (21:34.572)
Yeah. Do you have thoughts on you know, and I kind of referenced it earlier. So like the designer who becomes, you know, an entrepreneur and launches their own agency to become, you know, a design agency and they want to do design or developer who became an accidental agency owner who wants to write code, like is that any different than if they clear things off their plate so they can focus on the craft that they love versus the ten thousand dollar an hour things like because we're talking about
life and the things that are important to us, like how do you play with with that as the thing I that's important to me?
George Rivera (22:09.218)
Yeah, that's a good question. And and that might just come down to individual preference because I I know sometimes there's things that like, you know, we love to do where, you know, we're experts say, you know, you you love to code, you accidentally started an agency, your your your time might be worth more, you know, doing higher level stuff for the agency and you can find other coders to to do that. But if it's like your your your life's purpose to be coding and you get a sense of joy out of it, I I I guess I could entertain an argument that that you're just doing what you should be doing.
But then you might want to consider having somebody else, you know, run and grow the agency. And and you know, you could hire out a CEO, for example, and you maintain ownership and you're just like in your zone of genius. It might not be the best use of your time, but it brings you fulfillment and joy that that's priceless elsewhere, you know, in to to kind of, you know, to give it some sort of value. so I I think there could be special circumstances where where they could kind of justify that if it makes them happy on a personal level.
Steve Guberman (23:08.053)
Yeah, I I think I know at least a handful of founders who are not CEOs. Founders who have put somebody better than them in that role that is a better CEO because they want to either do their craft or they're just better at something else. it's not easy to do. It's an expensive investment, but again, we're investing in happiness, we're investing in life balance, the things that are our priorities versus being a slave to this business that I'm building or this job that I'm building, right?
George Rivera (23:34.702)
Absolutely. Yeah. You you hit it.
Steve Guberman (23:36.684)
Yeah, super powerful stuff. It's not talked about enough. so I'm I'm grateful that we met and got to kind of bring this topic out for people to talk about. So buybacktimeformula.com is George's website. Follow him on LinkedIn. He's probably the only George Rivera on LinkedIn. So go to his website and get the link. George, let me wrap up with a couple of random rapid fires for you. The first is what is what is one one element of your daily routine that
kind of sets the stage for success for you.
George Rivera (24:08.3)
Yeah, for me it's at the very beginning of my day. I have kind of this meditation prayer that I do every single day. I'll spend up to an hour kind of going through that before I check any messages. I find that is so important. I used to like kind of do some of this listening to stuff and thinking I'm engaging there, but also checking my email and multitasking and and yeah, it was it wasn't the best way to start the day. So I I I love just yeah.
Getting my mind clean, clear, waking up a little bit before I even see one email or check anything. That's the way to way to go for me.
Steve Guberman (24:41.631)
Yeah. Love that. I'm the same way. What is a belief that you know, a business belief that was core to you, let's say three years ago, that has sis f since flipped and you're like, that that doesn't apply anymore.
George Rivera (24:54.402)
Yeah, I I'd say one that that comes up every once in a while. You know, it's just like that you just have to like work hard to make business successful. and and I think, you know, most people can agree, no, that's not necessarily true, but somehow we gravitate like our actions might might show different than what what we say we believe, if that makes sense. And so I found myself sometimes slipping back into like working more than than I committed to do thinking it's gonna get me further.
when in reality it's i it's either like neutral or or taking me back from the goal that I want. So it's just something that creeps in every once in a while.
Steve Guberman (25:33.153)
Love that. And then finally, if you look back on, let's say, thirty years ago, George, what's a piece of business advice you can give knowing what you know today?
George Rivera (25:41.612)
Yeah, I would say one day you are going to have a family and you're gonna wanna be around it. You're gonna you know, if you keep going at this pace, you're gonna miss a lot of the moments you wish you didn't miss and luckily you'll get it, but you know, do it before you have to miss those moments. So you're either gonna scale freedom or you're gonna scale chaos in your business. So scale freedom, even if you're a one man shop or one person shop, have systems so that once you bring on people, it's easier to s to sort of plug them in and and you're scaling freedom instead of chaos.
Steve Guberman (26:11.967)
Gaining freedom instead of chaos. I love it. George Rivera, thank you so much for joining me. Grateful that we met, grateful for your time today. And we'll drop links to your website and social media in the show notes.
George Rivera (26:23.15)
Thank you, Steve. This was fun.
Steve Guberman (26:25.122)
Thanks.