Speaker: 0:01

Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.

Tom Jackobs: 0:36

Welcome to the Heart-Led Business Show where passion meets profit. And today we have the Financial Wizard, Brad Blazar, a former oil CEO turned capital raising connoisseur. He's managed to turn a whopping 2 billion. Yes, that's with a B, into a masterclass on OPM, which of course is other people's money. With a heart of helping others rise and thrive. Brad's here to share his entrepreneurial escapades and wisdom with us. So get ready to unlock the Secrets of Wealth Building with a sprinkle heart. Right here on the Heart-Led Business show. Brad, welcome to the show.

Brad Blazar: 1:14

It's great to be here with you today, Tom. Thank you so much for being a great host and always a pleasure to show up and share knowledge and just share my philosophies on success and building a life of wisdom.

Tom Jackobs: 1:25

Yeah. I'm super excited to speak with you and have you on the show. We've known each other for a couple months now and worked together and I'm really impressed with your business and what you're doing to help people raise capital. Really glad that we're able to talk and share your knowledge with the audience, but of course first, I'm just going to ask what's your definition of a Heart-Led business?

Brad Blazar: 1:46

It's funny that you should ask that because knowing I was going to appear on the show and getting an email that said, here are some of the topics I really slept on this last night. My definition of a Heart-Led Business really goes back to some teachings and readings of mine. I'm a big reader of Stephen Covey, seven habits of highly successful people. I'm actually reading another book that I've got over here in the studio. This one here, Trust and Inspire was actually given to me by his nephew Whit Covey, who I had the pleasure of meeting in Salt Lake not too long ago. But Covey talks about this concept called the whole person theory. Mind, body, spirit, soul. And so when I started, hearing about that mind, body, spirit, soul, what I started to realize in my own life is I was somewhat out of balance. And I see so many people in the world that are, they've worked hard, they've got a lot of success. They're making money but their life is miserable. They're depressed, they're in a bad relationship or whatever, treating employees bad. And so I started focusing on myself, fitness, marriage being a good father to my daughter, etcetera, employees. And I came up with a word that I hope you and your listeners really like that defines what I believe is a Heart-Led Business. You ready for this? The word is become a fulfillionaire. That if you pursue a Heart-Led Business in a heart-led life, you become a fulfillionaire not just enriched in wealth and success. You're enriched in all areas of your life, your relationships, how you treat others, obviously abundance. And so my definition of really what I would call a Heart-Led Business or being a Heart-Led Business owner is really to pursue what I call that dream of becoming a fulfulfillionaire. And so for me, that's what defines, heart-led. It's just, leading with your heart how you treat people, how you want others to treat yourself. But also realizing that there's a lot more to success than just the financial success. And it's really that becoming a fulfulfillionaire and focusing on what Covey says are the 4 things. They got that whole person theory, your mind. Always be feeding that, of course your heart, your spirit, which is the energy that you bring to everything you do. And then of course, your soul.

Tom Jackobs: 4:05

Yeah. Oh, I love that. You're gonna need to trademark that fulfilling error.

Brad Blazar: 4:09

I know. I've trademarked the other thing that I wear on my wrist, which is another philosophy called the Art of Pathology that I actually write about in my very first book On The Wings of Eagles. So that is trademarked. Fulfulfillionaire is not yet, but don't be surprised if it soon is.

Tom Jackobs: 4:27

Before this episode airs be sure to do that. And that word just, it tells it all. And actually the last episode right before you he was talking about the fulfillment that you chase his dream and maybe it's the first million dollars and you reach there and you're like, okay. That was fine. What's next? 10 million, a hundred million? Where does it end?

Brad Blazar: 4:48

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 4:48

It's until you have that fulfillment within you and that purpose when it becomes like, oh, now I've arrived. I'm now a fulfulfillionaire. I love it.

Brad Blazar: 4:59

Absolutely. You bet. Yep.

Tom Jackobs: 5:00

That's what the currency should be is in fulfillment.

Brad Blazar: 5:03

Yep. At least I believe that, and in the work we do coaching, mentoring people on how to use other people's money to really, build and create wealth. Most people that start doing this, their focus is, I just gotta raise money to close the deal, and get this deal done. But I believe that there's much more of a purpose behind that. In the whole educational coaching girls space, we always hear people talk about, you gotta know your why, you gotta know your purpose in life. And I think so many people don't really focus on that. What that will do is it will get you through all the challenges and all the crap and all the heartaches that we go through. Building a business as an entrepreneur because it's challenging. Being an entrepreneur, I believe is probably one of the most difficult challenging things on the planet. Because you have people whose lives and whose families depend on you. Your employees and your workers, that's a huge responsibility that I take very seriously. But it's also how you treat those other people, with respect and really waking up every day. And people always ask me what my purpose is. What my why is. It's really to use my platform to be the person in not only my family, but in also the relationships that others can lean on. I heard a story many years ago by a gentleman that was a speaker at an event that I was at that talked about this. And I'll tell you, I've never seen a speaker bring a room of a hundred people to tears. Everybody in that room was just bawling their brains out'cause this story was so emotional and I've used it actually on stage as well to really drive, what that message is. But just in summary, he said, it was one year, many years ago, right before Christmas. And his sister-in-law and her family came over for the holidays. I think it was the 23rd, a day or two before Christmas. And the adults went upstairs. So he's upstairs with his father-in-law. The boys were downstairs in the pool and of course the girls were in the kitchen and they were watching the Dallas Cowboys. I guess father-in-law or brother-in-law, fell asleep on the couch. And all of a sudden, as the game was finishing up, he literally leapt off the couch. Like he had seen a ghost, alarmed, grabbed Matt's arm and he was sweating. And Matt said, okay he was panicked. This guy just saw like a nightmare. He said I guess I just had a bad dream. And then he said he put his head down. And he lifted it up and he stared at me with a stare I will never forget. He said, can I share a secret with you? And Matt's yeah, you're family. You're my brother-in-law of course. And he said, I wanna let you know that a couple weeks ago I was diagnosed with cancer. And he's like telling this on Christmas Eve. And this guy that's speaking, Matt said, oh my God that's not the news. I wanted to hear you know how bad. He said Matt, it's stage four and it's terminal. The doctors had given me a couple more months.

Tom Jackobs: 7:48

Oh my gosh.

Brad Blazar: 7:50

Listen to this though, Tom, he said, what does Susie have to say about that? Susie, of course, is the wife that's downstairs.

Tom Jackobs: 7:56

Oh.

Brad Blazar: 7:57

I haven't told her yet. You haven't told your wife that you're dying of terminal cancer. What's wrong with you? And he started crying. He said, Matt, I haven't planned for this. I don't have life insurance. I don't know what the future's gonna hold for my kids. She's probably gonna have to go back to work. She's gonna have to sell the house, and he said it's time to man up. Like we gotta go downstairs and have a little conversation here in the moment. And so he forced his brother-in-law downstairs and as we can all emotionalize and empathize, every emotion that we can feel came out that night. Hugging, kissing, not knowing what the future will hold. It wasn't even six months, three months later there was a burial. And the sad thing is that the next day, the guy that was speaking his wife comes downstairs and Matt can tell that she had been crying'cause her mascara was all running down her face. And of course this is the sister to the sister-in-law who just lost her husband. He said, what's wrong, honey? And she just said, I've been thinking about my sister. They're not like us. They're not privileged people. She's gonna have to sell the house, get on welfare, go back to work, maybe get two jobs, and he just looked at her and said, I know it's gonna be real hard, God will intervene. He always makes a way. And so that day from the office, he called his sister-in-law and he said, we've been thinking about, and we'd like to invite you guys over this weekend for some barbecue. We wanna see the kids. We want to be a part of your life. So they came over and at the end of the dinner, he opened up the lapel to his sports coat, and he handed her Hallmark gift card. And she opened it and she burst in tears and she said, I cannot take this from you. He said, oh, yes you can. And more importantly you will because you are family. Inside that envelope, folks, there was a check for$3 million dollars. Become the insurance policy that man never had. And then he raised his hand and he said, who wants to be like Rich Uncle Matt? And be the legacy in your family that has the ability to do that, that is purpose. And I'm like that, yeah, that's purpose. Big time. If you can be that for the people you love and be the foundation that others can turn to. And literally everybody was just crying in the moment. And for me, that was the driving force that said, that is gonna be the me and not only my family, but to my friends and to everybody that I care about. Isn't that powerful?

Tom Jackobs: 10:02

That's so powerful and there's so much behind that, especially, for Heart-Led Business owners that fear making money because it goes against the purpose or the mind trash that we have sometimes that we shouldn't charge. But how can you do great things like that or take care of your family if you die, if you don't do any of that stuff.

Brad Blazar: 10:23

Exactly. Absolutely. Yep.

Tom Jackobs: 10:25

And then the reason that I created this show was to highlight that you can have a Heart-Led Business and still make money and be okay with that.

Brad Blazar: 10:32

Yeah. Absolutely.

Tom Jackobs: 10:33

Thank you so much for

Brad Blazar: 10:34

sharing

Tom Jackobs: 10:35

that.

Brad Blazar: 10:35

It's a great story and it's a true story too, which really should inspire people.

Tom Jackobs: 10:39

So you help people raise money for their projects and I'm sure a lot of our listeners will imagine too, that people just want the money to build the business and it's all about profit. I have a question for you. Do you find as you're coaching people, that it's easier to raise money when you have a heart and a purpose in it, or if you're just looking for the cash grab?

Brad Blazar: 11:00

No, I think it's definitely easier if there's a purpose or you have something that you're doing with the success that you're experiencing in your business. I've interviewed a number of people on our show, and one of the things that I've uncovered is that many of the people that have come onto the show. Are somewhat philanthropic in what they choose to do. One person I interviewed last year said that what he does is he takes a percentage of his company's profits and the revenues and basically uses it through his foundation to provide capital to those families that wanna go through the adoption process because they cannot have children naturally, but still want to build a family. And he said, we have literally hosted adoptions for many families that now have been able to adopt kids that otherwise would not have been able to do and so I think that if there is that purpose in your business, then it really resonates with people at a very different level. Because what I find in talking to most affluent people is that they want their capital to survey purpose or to do something other than just, generate profits and generate revenue. And so I strongly believe that if you can tie what it is we're doing to quote something else that has a impact it's gonna be much, much easier to raise capital. And hopefully it will resonate with the people that you're building as your investment community because they know that your vision is to do good. I think that if you can figure out what that is and define that, it's really going to help you in the long run, build not only a better company, but also raise more capital and really align yourself with investors that also do save and also share that same vision.

Tom Jackobs: 12:50

Yeah, and I'm glad you said that'cause that was going through my head as well, that it's important to share that vision or have that partnership or, investor, they have obviously invested interest in the success of the business. But to have that shared value and shared vision and shared purpose I'm sure would make it a lot easier for them.

Brad Blazar: 13:09

Yep.

Tom Jackobs: 13:10

Awesome. So tell us a little bit more about your business and how you're helping people raise that capital, but have a heart at the same time.

Brad Blazar: 13:19

Yeah, it's really interesting how this business evolved. I certainly wasn't looking to really start it when I did, but it just happened naturally. About 35 years ago, maybe even longer, I started the process of writing a book. It was actually in the very late 1990s. But I never finished and it was called, On The wings of Eagles. And it was really to chronicle my success as a very young entrepreneur. Not many 23, 24-year-old kids are building multi-billion dollar oil companies, which is what I was doing in my 20's. But I never finished the book. And so one day I was cleaning out my office and I stumbled across this floppy disk, which was basically the book on the disc that was sitting in just the bottom of a drawer.

Tom Jackobs: 14:04

Yeah, quick question, Brad. Was it a three and half or a five inch?

Brad Blazar: 14:07

It was a smaller one. Yeah, the smaller one. And of course I'm sitting here looking at my computer and I no longer have a floppiness drive. You extract the content off the disc. So I took it, I think it was to Best Buy or Geek Squad or whatever, and I said, look, I've got this content here. Can you extract it and then email it to me so I can finish this book that I started roughly 30 years ago? And the reason that was important to me is I had a daughter. She was roughly, I think about four or five at the time, and of course as a proud dad, I'm explaining to her we always gotta finish what we start, honey. And here I'm looking at something I had started 30 years ago that I had never completed. So anyway, I dusted it off, I finished it, we self-published it. It was my first book and it came out on Amazon and a good friend of mine was going to purchase the book and he called me and he said, hey, I just wanted to let you know, I don't know if you're aware of this, but your book is the number one book right now in England on a major literary blog where it's rated number one for young entrepreneurs. And I'm like, you're gonna be kidding me. Like where? So I Googled it sure enough on this big, huge literary blog over in England. My book is the number one book on the list for young entrepreneurs. So I take that and what I did with that information is I sent it out to all of the universities here in the United States that have schools or programs for entrepreneurship. So I started getting calls from deans and from the university, Mr. Blazar, thank you so much for your book. We'd love to have you come speak to our student community. Is that something you'd love to do? Sure. So here I am flying all over the country on my own dime, not even knowing I could be paid as a professional public speaker. And then I started getting calls from radio stations to be interviewed on the radio. So I sat down with my wife and I'm like, I've always had a dream to, be on stage and use my knowledge and inspire and motivate others. And so I went to Google. We all say, how do you do this? You type it in. And I stumbled across a coach that I've known now since we started. One of my good friends coach Michael Burp out of Tennessee, he's one of the best. And he said, here's the blueprint, here's the model. I've been a coach all my life. I spoke at 10X, I've written, I think it was 15, 16 books. And I said, okay, teach me the speaking business. Teach me how to become an educator and a coach. And so he took me under his wing and wrote a second book, started speaking publicly and charging for it. And that's how the business really grew. But the interesting thing, is that my first quote offer was not teaching people how to raise capital. It was more mindset. It was tied to the art of pathology that I wrote about in the book and instilling habits in people. And it was going well, but it wasn't going great. And I sat down with them one day and I said, I'm real frustrated. This business is doing okay, but I don't see it ever scaling to multiple seven figures. He said, here's the challenge. You're competing with people like Tony Robbins, you got Brandon Bouchard, you got all these people that have been doing this for years, and that's your competition. He said, what you gotta do is find what I call your primary hard skill. What is it that is about Brad Blazar that you believe you do better than anybody else? And at the time, I didn't know what it was. No, I was watching TV one day and it was Steve Harvey and he was on his stage, talking to his audience. And he said something very similar. He said, I believe in my audience here that everybody has a unique skill. I call it your something special. It's if you've ever been to build a bear with your children, where they put that little heart into bear and they sew it up inside you, there's something unique. If you can figure out what that is and create content that helps change people's lives, it's a very magical thing. And literally about two weeks later, I remember to this day, I was sitting on my back patio. We live on a beautiful river, and it hit me like a ton of bricks and I'm like, holy cow. My skill is knowing how to raise money. Millions. And that is a thing that I bet a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of business owners would really like to learn. So I called him up and I said, Hey, I think I've got it. It's teaching other people. How to attract and raise capital so they can get a seat at the bigger kids table, do bigger deals, create wealth. He said, bingo, that's it. And so we rebranded and it's been about 5 years now since we came out with our platform. And of course today it's, multiple 7 figures. We're in countries all around the globe. We impact people's lives in places like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, of course here, United Kingdom, middle East. And it's really been such a humbling experience to see the transformation in other people's lives. And that's been a really cool thing. In the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki actually writes in the book that understanding and mastering skill of using OPM is really the key to creating legacy generational wealth.

Tom Jackobs: 18:57

Yeah. Yeah, because then you, it's more leverage, right?

Brad Blazar: 19:00

It is more leverage and it just gets you where you want to go, much faster. Absolutely. You can only do so much with your own capital. Sure. People have become very wealthy with their own money, but think about how much faster you can get there when you start raising capital and being able to scale and reinvest that. Absolutely.

Tom Jackobs: 19:18

Yeah. And I think, Shark Tank is a really good example of that. You see some of these somewhat successful companies going on there and then they get that seed money and it's like a rocket ship.

Brad Blazar: 19:28

Things take off. Absolutely.

Tom Jackobs: 19:30

What kind of transformations have you seen or stories of people that you've helped that you look back and you're like, God, I'm so proud of what I built.

Brad Blazar: 19:37

I think, one is of course what we built, but of course it's also what others have built. I was on a call with a woman in a Australia a couple of weeks ago, and she said, Hey, we just raised$19 million dollars in the last 60 days to close a deal that we've been working on. I have other people that, were just getting started doing single family homes, making, 20,$30,000 on a slip. That today, now own 70, 80, a hundred million dollars in commercial real estate assets because they've learned how to attract and raise capital from investors. People that have launched funds that are now, managing portfolios in the tens of millions of dollars. And so when you know somebody comes to you as a beginner. They really have not done this at any scale, and then you stay in touch with them over the course of 2, 3, 4 years and my God, look at where you started and where you are now. You're sitting here with$50 million in real estate. Your investors own the major portion of that, the way this is structured is you're getting 30%. As the person with the knowledge and the skills to operate and manage. And so 30% of 50 million's a pretty nice number, ain't it? When that stuff eventually sells. But it's really also the philanthropic aspect of what it's enabled a lot of these people to do as well. We have one student basically that's, building small villages in schools up in Haiti. We have another that, is very involved in his local community, basically building or basically upgrading, rehabbing small homes for families that don't have the capital to go out and purchase their own home. And so it's just really been great to see the impact that's made in other people's lives and how it's really also allowed people to just scale their business up. One of my people owns a vineyard and Great winery. He's shipped many bottles to me and now he's expanding to create what he calls the vintner's table, which is, restaurants that serve the Italian food and his own wines, and that's gonna grow to become a national footprint in the next couple years. We're raising capital to put that out across the country. And he said, what I've really come to realize is that we were not a vineyard, we're a hospitality company because we did so many weddings at the vineyard because brides want to have their wedding at a beautiful setting, which our vineyard is. And now we have the restaurant we wanna expand to have a nice little Airbnb. And it's really interesting how going from a small little local vineyard is now to a national footprint as a hospitality company. How does that happen? It happens with the investor capital.

Tom Jackobs: 22:09

Yeah. Wow. So you're really bringing dreams to reality for a lot.

Brad Blazar: 22:14

Absolutely. And that's really what started this whole platform when I was consulting and doing the other thing which is based more on the art of pathology. I would always ask people a question. I would say, Tom, if you weren't doing what you're doing today, what would you really love to be doing? And that's where people would open up and share their dreams. Oh my God, Brad, I've always wanted to open a restaurant, or, I've always wanted to get in commercial real estate like you, or, I've always wanted to be a business owner. And then I would follow that up with a second question why are you not doing that? It always comes down. I just don't have the capital. I can't because financially I just don't have the money. And here I am having raised over$2 billion through my efforts and the efforts of very small teams, and I'm like, don't you realize that every day when you roll out of bed, like you're surrounded by all the money, you need to pretty much do anything in life you wanna desire. We just call these other people investors. If I could show you how to raise the capital to make that a reality, would that be something of interest? Oh, of course. That's what led me to that conclusion that I can help people make their dreams come true. And whether it's a couple hundred to open up a business or to launch that restaurant or to get into real estate, it's really, like you just said, it's using my knowledge to help transform people's lives, but in many cases also make those dreams, those visions come true and become real. We have one guy in Toronto. That has a great concept and I think this has potential to be a multi-billion dollar business. Why?'cause we already know Topgolf, right? This has something called megalodon golf, which is basically nine holes of golf all under a huge roof, right? So if we've seen those big white inflatable things where they have indoor tennis,

Tom Jackobs: 23:54

Yeah.

Brad Blazar: 23:54

the indoor, ski resorts, they have in places like Dubai, imagine year-round golfing. I said, that's brilliant. People will definitely pay to come into that air conditioned, doesn't matter what the temperature is outside and you got a nice little par-3 golf course. I said, I got people that would be very interested in something like that. We can get some professional golfers we know as the spokespeople behind that to endorse it, to make it go viral. It's really just very cool to see how certain things can evolve, but also how your connections and who you know can also help other people.

Tom Jackobs: 24:27

And that's the key, the old saying, your net worth is your network,

Brad Blazar: 24:31

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that's so true. Absolutely. 100%. You bet.

Tom Jackobs: 24:35

Brad, this has just been a fascinating conversation. I'm sad that it's come to that time, but how can people learn more about what you're doing and how to raise capital?

Brad Blazar: 24:45

Probably the easiest way is just, come to our website. Our website is just my first and last name. You can Google me, but it's just, www.bradblazar.com. You'll hear about me and my background and you'll be able to see the three books we've published that are available. You can listen to my podcast episodes and there's just some great articles and content there to really learn about raising capital and, what other people have done. We've got case studies and then just reach out to us on the contact page. If you want to be a little bit more immediate. Just go to Instagram and look for me on Instagram, it's Brad Blazar with a little blue check. And just shoot me a DM and just say, Hey, I saw you on the heart-led podcast and would love to get on a call with you and learn more. And usually we get back to people in 24 to 48 hours, but that would be the best and the easiest way for people to reach out.

Tom Jackobs: 25:37

Yeah, and will link all that up into the show notes as well. Brad, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom and your amazing stories as well. Thank you so much.

Brad Blazar: 25:45

I appreciate it. Thank you for being such a great host and more importantly, asking really good, impactful questions that hopefully people will take to heart.'cause that's the name of the show.

Tom Jackobs: 25:54

That's right. Awesome. And thank you listeners for tuning in today and listening to today's episode. We really do appreciate it. Make sure you're checking out everything that Brad's doing. That's all gonna be linked up, down in the show notes, so make sure you are going down there and clicking around. And then also, while you're down there, you might wanna give us a good rating and review. If it deserves that, which I think it does. But that just helps us spread the word about the Heart-Led Business show, and help more people who wanna put a little bit more heart into their business. And until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2: 26:29

You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.