How to Build a Business That Stops Costing You Your Life

Season 1 was Inside Man. We spent a year asking what success was costing the man behind it. Season two is DelegAIte, and now we go outside. Same heart, new game: how do you redesign the business so success no longer requires the founder, the team, or the family to suffer?

In this episode I sit down with Gus Waite, my partner in crime and the founder of Independent Brokers Collective. Gus spent 20 years as a managing broker in New York City running a team of 100 agents before landing on Cape Cod. We met in recovery. We started having coffee. He said one thing that changed my direction, and six months later I am doing only what I love and helping other founders do the same.

This is not a guru show. We are students and teachers. We build it on ourselves first, we go through the frustration first, and then we bring it to you. Done with you, not to you.

What we get into:

Rewirement, and why your next game finds you instead of the other way around
Redefining success as doing what you love in service of other people
The moment in the shed that changed everything for me
Elevate people, never replace them. The non-negotiable behind all of this
Black, white and gray: what should be automated, what never should, and the interesting part in the middle
Every job is a series of tasks, and how to see yours clearly
Team resistance, and the difference between a forward company and a native one
Why the founder cannot hand this off to the integrator on day one
Source Code and the co-CEO: capturing your beliefs, your voice, and the words you hate
Analog, digital, agentic. Where you actually are on that path
Real time numbers instead of reading history on the 15th of the month

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to season two
02:21 Who Gus is and how we found each other
04:26 Resistance, Cape Cod, and the birth of rewirement
07:13 From "I have to make money" to "I want to do what I love"
09:09 What is success costing the man behind it
10:52 Redefining success
13:24 Why this is not a guru podcast
15:51 The aha moment in the shed
19:25 Elevate people, never replace people
21:04 Five million with one employee
22:16 The two groups nobody is serving
26:51 Team resistance and what to do about it
27:41 Black, white and gray
31:33 Why founders cannot delegate this too early
32:24 One dashboard instead of fifteen logins
33:19 Source Code and the co-CEO
38:08 What happened when I got my own Source Code
40:34 Analog, digital, agentic
41:15 Real time numbers versus historic numbers
44:50 What is not changing in season two
47:13 Gus's parting message

About the guest

Gus Waite is the founder of Independent Brokers Collective. Former NYC managing broker, former actor and stand up comedian, current Cape Cod resident who will absolutely make you laugh before he makes you think.

IB Collective: https://ibcollective.ai

Want to be a guest? We are looking for real operators, not celebrities. Fill out the guest form at the link below:

https://forms.gle/guCp7wDBoUjkX86t7

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