Ultimate Advisor Guest Episode: Entrepreneurs’ Quest for the Dream Exit w/ Mike Malatesta (424.5)

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Episode transcript below:

SPEAKERS

Brittany Anderson, Mike Malatesta

Brittany Anderson  00:00

I got your file all set up one thing really quick make sure I’ve got so I’ve got your bio all set. And I basically just curated a lot of the questions to just set you up to talk about what you’re working on. I do ask for you know, a couple of things that are more related to like challenges. You see entrepreneurs face some difficult lessons in your own life and business. I know you’ve talked about in a lot of your stuff before so it’s all all the stuff that’s easy to answer.

Mike Malatesta  00:32

Okay.

Brittany Anderson  00:34

All right. So do you have any questions for me before we kick off?

Mike Malatesta  00:38

I don’t think so.

Brittany Anderson  00:40

You’ve done this once or twice.

Mike Malatesta  00:42

Yeah, two times, but everyone’s a new experience. So I’m I’m I’m ready to go.

Brittany Anderson  00:51

Just like anything. Solid two to three second count pause, so that our editing team can easily grab on to that spot like that. I like flubbed, I like natural. So my suggestion is just keep going. But that is available if

Mike Malatesta  01:07

you need it. All right. Thank you for that. Escape. It’s your escape if I need a recording in progress

Brittany Anderson  01:23

Welcome back to The Ultimate advisor podcast today. I have got with me some brilliance so you are in for a real treat. My special guest today is Mike Malatesta. He’s an entrepreneur who loves helping entrepreneurs bring their dreams to fruition and achieve massive success. Mike has lived in entrepreneurial shoes for more than 30 years. You’ve experienced the success, the excitement, the pain, the grit, and mistakes that come with every entrepreneurial journey. He knows how hard lonely challenging and rewarding it can all be Mike has founded grown and sold two very successful waste recycling companies. That grossed more than $500 billion. Yes, you heard that right. He’s also acquired 23 companies invested in more than 100 others and serves on the board of several please help me welcome Malatesta to the show. How are you doing my

Mike Malatesta  02:26

friend? I am doing great. Brittany, thank you so much for having me on today. I’m so I’ve had you on my podcast. So being on your podcast is a real pleasure. Thank you so much. Our

Brittany Anderson  02:38

pleasure having you here. Let me tell you I’m really looking forward to this conversation. So we are going to cut right to the chase. You help people create successful exits from their business. Yes. So I want to know where did you get your inspiration and how does this whole thing work?

Mike Malatesta  02:57

My inspiration came from introspection. In 2020, late late 2020. I published my first book, which is my only book so far, I will add but not my only one ever. And that book is called The owner shift and the subtitle is how getting selfish got me unstuck in it. It’s it was exploration of a portion of my career, my entrepreneurial career. And when I published that book, I started to get people who read it asking me if I did any coaching Brittany and and I didn’t. I never had done any formal coaching. I just, you know I would help people if they wanted help and I would coach our team and people on our team, but I never had done any coaching. I never thought about it actually. So that got into my mind that maybe there’s a path to you know, me being able to help people with something entrepreneurs in particular was something and I will tell you that in this year. It was a byproduct really of the book but the book was a byproduct of me, planning for what things I would do to help me find meaning and purpose in my life after I sold my first business. So these people started coming to me, I started talking to people about how I could help them. But I wasn’t really thinking that what I was talking with them about was the perfect right fit for me. And so I started thinking harder about what that actually was. What’s unique about me and my experiences and my place in the world that isn’t unique about a lot of other people who are doing advisory or coaching work, and that’s needed. That’s really missing. And that led me to this idea that I put into a program called the dream exit and it fits me so perfectly I think because well first of all what what the dream exit is the dream exit is two things or at least two things. One is preparing and positioning your business to sell at its maximum value. Even if you have no intention of selling today. And the second is preparing you as the entrepreneur or the business owner for a life of maximum purpose and meaning after you sell your business and why I think that fits so right with me as you mentioned some of my experience in the bio. I just have I’ve sat across from people, entrepreneurs I’ve sat across from a lot of them. I’ve been in the shoes of them. I’ve been across the table from buyers, I’ve been a buyer and I’ve just collected over time this this I don’t know knowledge about how best to position yourself and your business for what is for most people going to be the most financial the most consequential financial and professional choice they ever make. And I thought to myself, there’s too many people leaving that choice, too. Well, to chance, and I wanted to fix that.

Brittany Anderson  06:42

Well, first of all, we got to plug your book a little bit because you just raised by that oh actually I was

Mike Malatesta  06:48

looking at you.

Brittany Anderson  06:51

Ownership if you didn’t catch that. It’s a great read. And thank you. One of the things Mike that I think you’ve captured so beautifully in it. And that really ties into what you’re talking about here because the essence is you’re teaching from experience. You’re not teaching from a hypothetical, right? Whether it be through your book ownership. And you know, you talking about your journey and your mistakes and your path and the pain and the good and the excitement and everything across the board. You’re coming to your audience with that same knowledge and conviction when it comes to that sale. So I want to pivot this just a little bit because a lot of our audience you know, we have a wide range advisor audience, we have some people listening that are going I’m tuning into this because I’m at the point of wanting to sell and I want to maximize my own sale. I also have in conjunction with that. A heck of a lot of people who serve business owners as their clients, right. So I would be curious, like, if you’re speaking to this audience that you know, maybe they’re getting ready to sell, or they have clients that they know would benefit from a service like this. What would be the first thing that you would tell them to do to take action

Mike Malatesta  08:05

so the first thing I would tell them to do is to get in a mindset where you put a buyers lens onto what you’re doing with your business, first and foremost. Because here’s what I here’s what I think, I think entrepreneurs in particular, do amazing work. They commit themselves to amazing risk, and they reap the reward of amazing opportunity sometimes. And they wake up they spend their whole day thinking about how they can maximize their business, but they don’t. They tend to get they tend to get fixated on how they can do it based on how they think they should do it and not how they do it based on what a buyer should would think they would do it and so ultimately, I think they end up screwing themselves Brittany because they just they take this most consequential life changing event and they don’t do any preparation for it. Like they prepare for everything else in their in their life. And they do it on two fronts. They do it on the business front and they do it on on the personal front as well. So what I would what I would say to any entrepreneurs, Hey, would you does it do you think it makes sense to spend a little bit of time and making an investment now well before you are thinking that you want to sell the business to get yourself prepared to create a playbook to create a map and begin the process towards the maximum you know selling your business at maximum value and creating maximum purpose for your life? Not do or do you think it’s better to wait until someone comes to you with an offer or you become so frustrated with the business that you’re like, I gotta get rid of this thing. And then over the course of the next 90 days, you put yourself at a tremendous disadvantage because you don’t know the process. You don’t know what you should be doing. You don’t know what you should have thought about but yet, you go in there and you think I’m gonna get the best result. Possible when the odds are totally stacked against me. So that’s what I would ask an entrepreneur, someone that’s serving entrepreneurs. I would say to them, you there’s there’s, I’m an expert in whatever it is. So I’m an expert in wealth planning. Let’s which is hugely important. When you’re considering something like this, it’s a huge part of the playbook. And and yet, so many times you don’t think about it you don’t you don’t bring somebody in until you after you’ve made the sale let’s say and then and then this whole thing right Brittany, this whole thing about oh, how much am I really going to get after I pay the taxes? Huh? How much am I going to need to have the life of purpose and meaning that I want going forward? How could I have saved a bunch of taxes by taking some of my assets and establishing a different kind of trust structure than I had when I didn’t have this kind of money but served me well when I had less? You know, those those kinds of things? And I say so those are the people are those kinds of advisors, whatever, whatever they are I would I would be talking to the entrepreneur like hey, how I can help you with this. there’s no question about that. but how have you prepared your business to make sure that you are going to get its maximum value? How have you prepared yourself to make sure that once this is over you are happy? You have purpose you have meaning? You know what you are going to do next or at least what you’re going to try next. Because those are the conversations that advisers don’t typically have with him and they have there, they get engaged when there’s something to do. The. Now, I shouldn’t I mean tax planning and stuff happens along the way but it’s a whole different thing.

Brittany Anderson  12:29

Not, Mike, I’m going to I’m going to state something that that we definitely believe, you know, here at ultimate advisor coaching but also in our wealth planning business as well. Yeah. And see if you agree or disagree with this. So one of the biggest challenges that we see happen, it’s not. It’s not necessarily within the sale of the business, everything you talked about there about the preparation that needs to happen like that absolutely has to happen, because you don’t want to see those knee jerk decisions like you mentioned, where you just get fed up one day or you get an offer you take it because you didn’t expect it and you got excited or whatever, yes. But on the flip side, we tend to see the biggest mistake that people make when selling their business is not defining what they’re going to write. And I think you touched on this briefly. So can you talk a little bit about that you mentioned, find your purpose, what are you going to do with your time after just talk a little bit about what you’ve witnessed or what you believe?

Mike Malatesta  13:31

Yeah, thank you for thank you for for that. So here’s what I’ve witnessed. And that you mentioned, I’ve purchased a good number of businesses myself and I have I hang out with entrepreneurs. So I have a lot of friends who who are entrepreneurs who have sold their business and more who are starting to because I’m 57 They’re around my age this stuff starts to happen. The the so the last, here’s what’s not a dream exit. I sold my business. I left. I’ve got an urn out. I’ve got escrow I’ve got hold back. I’ve got all these things. Now. I don’t really like the way they’re running the company and I don’t like the way they’re treating me and they said nothing would change but geez, everything’s changing. And I’m not happy about what I did. And I say well, and we have got a module in the playbook. Right? Well, we’re gonna go through all of that because you the last thing you want at the end of this is regret. Second Thoughts. Just anger, you know, all of all of these things. So that’s, that’s number that’s, that’s number number one we’ve got this is really about. I’m going to put questions in front of you. And we’re going to answer those questions together. That’s going to be that’s going to no one’s asking you these questions. No one on your team is asking you to question your, your spouse, your your buddies, everybody’s focused on the number. Nobody’s focused on the other stuff. Nobody’s helping you with that. And then the other thing is, I think people make the mistake. And you tell me if you see this all the time, but people people make the mistake. entrepreneurs make the mistake. They say, Well, look, as long as I get the right number. I’ll have the freedom to figure it out. For myself afterwards. And in two that I say you will have the freedom and maybe you’ll figure it out. But what happens in the interim, between getting that freedom and figuring it out? You know, wouldn’t it be wouldn’t be much better if you did the thinking on that before it happens so that when you did have the freedom you knew what you wanted to do with that freedom instead of sort of floundering in freedom, like freedom can be it’s like the greatest thing like that’s why you work is to me, that’s how you work. Ultimately, you want to have freedom but freedom can also be devastating because it means okay, I’m free to do stuff, great, but I don’t have anything to do. Nobody needs me. I got no action in my life anymore. You know, all of these things that can easily be prevented if you if you do some thinking about them before.

Brittany Anderson  16:25

You know, Mike, I think you hit the nail on the head there to it. To your point. Yes, people will have the freedom and they can like you said figure it out. But I think there’s another F missing in there. And it’s the framework. Yes, people don’t take the time to go through the framework that can help set them up for success. And I think that’s a gap that you’re closing in this marketplace, is by giving people these questions that you reference, the step by step kind of guide on what do you need to ask yourself, What’s what’s going to come up that nobody’s going to ask you but you will face it afterwards, whether you like it or not. So I think that’s what makes this concept so powerful, is that you’re giving people the framework that’s missing, right? And you know, it’s interesting too, because I can think more times than I can count I like to joke out to take my shoes off in order to count this. Hi. There’s so many times when we see that story of the successful entrepreneur has an exit. And there is something either crazy that happens with their health in a short period of time or they’ve gone into a massive deep depression or their relationships fall apart. And it’s all because they haven’t identified that too and gone through the framework. So I think that’s such a powerful point to drive home here. Yes, your audience and for their clients to man as advisors. You know, I would say that we as a community in this industry owe it to our clients to at least give them a resource for that.

Mike Malatesta  18:00

It’s I’m glad you brought that up because first of all, I was thinking about you. You might be too young for this Janis Joplin line, but it was something like freedom is just another word for nothing left to do. And when when you so you’re an entrepreneur or business owner, you’ve had what most people would look at as a good financial exit. And you’re looking around at yourself and you’re not happy with where you are. Who do you talk to about that? Because nobody’s feel sorry for you at that point, right. You’re you’re at a point that most people can’t, because most people do believe that once you have money, you have happiness and everything works out. So it’s very hard to even talk to people. But if you talk to entrepreneurs, almost all of them who have sold their business and haven’t done this kind of planning. They’ll at first, don’t put the guard up. They’ll be like, No, I’m doing this and I’m doing that and but when the guard comes down a little bit, Brittany, it’s like I mean, I don’t know what I don’t know what I should be doing. I don’t know where I should be going. I don’t know what I should be thinking about. You know, I’m doing this and I’m doing that but it’s just not lighting me up. And you’ve got all this experience that you’ve built up over. The years that you’ve run your business, super valuable. But too many of us disk completely discount the value of it. And instead we think well, this is all I knew how to do. Instead of like I know how to do so much because I’ve done so much we instead go this is all I’ve ever done. So what am I going to do and my point is that, wouldn’t you rather have that conversation kinda like way early, like way before you, you know, so you can explore it a little bit as opposed to just jumping into it and hoping that just hoping that it works out.

Brittany Anderson  20:05

You know, something that comes to mind here is that we just recently hosted a summit for our ultimate advisor audience and Dr. Robert Cialdini was on talked about how when you are going to influence somebody or persuade somebody to do something that people often act more so out of fear of loss than excitement over game. And I think that’s exactly you know, kind of the thought process here is that your audience and I think again, let’s tie this back to our advisors listening. If you’re sitting here and you’re listening to my talk and going, Man, I don’t want my relationships to fall apart. I don’t want that loss of purpose. I mean, I’ve worked my butt off to accomplish what I want that sense to go away. And that’s where I think you know, Mike, I can speak for myself and I know I can speak for Brian sweet do a big part of what keeps us motivated, motivated, regardless of where we’re at in our business. If we’re looking at maybe we’ll have an exit in some aspect of one company or we’re building and we’re excited about development. Another one of the biggest helps is by being part of communities of other like minded entrepreneurs. So I think too, that’s something that is so powerful and needed is find your home. Find your community of people that you can be real and authentic, because your friends and your neighbors are gonna look at you and go, Yeah, you got a nice paycheck. You’re fine,

Mike Malatesta  21:35

right? Yeah,

Brittany Anderson  21:36

that’s a great point there, Mike.

Mike Malatesta  21:38

It’s just, it’s just hard. There’s no, I mean, even even simple you think this is the simplest thing for example, Brittany, is it i So I’ve talked to my spouse about this exit I’m going to have right and in, but I haven’t really thought about what that exit is going to mean for us. So I’m thinking it’s going to mean you know, trips and we can do this and we can do that and maybe it will, but what about being around all the time? What about being in someone else’s space who’s not used to having you in that space? What about, you know, and on and just just that simple thing, even that conversation doesn’t get doesn’t happen very often. And it’s just really it’s really hard to have that conversation with someone who hasn’t done it or been through it. It’s you can do it but the perspective is just probably not the right perspective. You need to really think through it.

Brittany Anderson  22:48

Yeah. And, you know, Mike, one of the reasons that we wanted to have you as a guest on the podcast here and anytime we’re choosing that is that we love being able to learn from people’s true experiences, not just the hypothetical, not just fluff, not just stuff that you hear, you know, hopefully it works. Right. So one of the questions I have for you is, you know, when you think back to your journey, you shared a lot of this in your book. I know you’ve shared some in podcast episodes of of your own podcast, which I do want to highlight here in a minute. But what is one of the most difficult lessons that you have personally learned as you’ve navigated this whole journey?

Mike Malatesta  23:28

My whole full journey Okay, so for me, and maybe this makes me kind of Neanderthal I don’t know, but for a long time, probably 10 years into my first business, Brittany, I I thought that asking for help was a sign of weakness. I thought that it was incumbent upon me to figure out everything that I needed to figure out and that I by by choosing to think that way, it made me seem like I was better or above other people. But ultimately, I discovered that that was really short sighted on my part, I would be and still to this day, I believe that I would be much further ahead if I had admitted, been willing more willing to admit where I need help and not admit that I couldn’t learn it on my own. But where, where’s the most value of my what I you know, applying what I know where does the most value come from, does it does it come from really maximizing what I know what I’m good at and nobody else is good at? Or does it come from being like, I could learn that and rather than ask someone for help or pay someone for help, I’m going to do that on my own. So I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to completely forget about or at least diminish the amount of time I spend working on the thing I’m great at and instead I’m going to try to learn this this new thing, part time. You know, it’s just and I was like that for a long time. And that was a big epiphany for me was to finally get smart enough or get beat up enough where I was like, if the help is there, why why not just, you know, avail myself to it. And and I think that’s what I’m doing right now. I mean, I’m providing a resource of of help to help entrepreneurs get this dream exit I believe that I believe they’ve earned and deserve and, and because there aren’t, there aren’t a lot of resources like me and like this out there, but more than that, I want to make it easy for entrepreneurs to be like, hey, there’s something there’s there’s a way to do this. I don’t have to figure this out on my own. And by the way, if I do it, I might just get 100x return on the investment of having some help. Yeah, wouldn’t that be terrible, right. So that’s for me, I think that I hope that answered your question.

Brittany Anderson  26:27

No, it definitely does. And I think that’s such a great point. Because, actually, it’s funny, Brian and I were just in a conversation the other day, and we were talking about, you know, one of the masterminds we participate in and, you know, we were talking back we’ve been in and out for gosh, eight years. I think it’s been, but the first and I’m not exaggerating this the first like, three years in this room. We would show up and we both had such impostor syndrome. And we were so nervous to speak to what our true needs were, that you kind of just become like the wallflower a little bit of, you know, kind of all these people here know a lot about this topic and, you know, we don’t really know a lot about that topic. It was the biggest mistake we could have made because as soon as we realized, like you’re wasting our time and our money if we don’t speak up and lean into what we really need most. And once we started doing that we saw just massive leaps and bounds in all of our businesses just by starting by being honest and ourselves the truth about what we really needed help with So, Mike, I think that’s such a valid comment. And, you know, it really brings me honestly to my next question here. So we’ve talked about, you know, capitalizing on opportunities and what you’re doing with this dream exit and helping people do that. Yeah. And we’ve talked about some of the struggles and challenges and where to put our attention. So this is another kind of personal question, but it really relates to everything we talked about here. What is the time that you have strategically overcame fear? So that it didn’t stop you dead in your tracks from pursuing what you wanted most

Mike Malatesta  28:11

strategically overcame fear Sure, to like that health thing for a while I pretended I wasn’t afraid of anything but you know, one of the things that a real fear that I had to face was my partner, his name was Butch and he passed away in a fire at one of our facilities. When we were about 10 years into business together and which was, which was the person who actually gave me the confidence to start the business with him in the first place. And he was, yeah, he was like one of those people. Maybe you and Brian are like this where he was the perfect complement to me whatever I was bad at he was good at whatever he was not great at I happen to be good at and so we just had this really complimentary symbiotic type relationship and, and at that point, I was, you know, I was still had this mindset of I don’t need help I do. I can do everything, all that stuff. And then he passes away and this fire which was horrible. You know, so I was dealing with one the loss of him too. It’s horrible and it’s my fault, because I’m in charge here, right. I’m already feeling like I’m worn out. And I’m thinking to myself what? Here’s the biggest supporter I’ve ever had in my whole life. And he’s God. He believed in me more than I believed in myself. And he’s gone and I that was really that was really difficult for me to to to. I had no playbook. At that point. I had no playbook at all to follow for that. So that took me a number of years to work my way through and and ultimately, some of what’s in the playbook now came from that journey like how do I be happy with what I’m doing? How do I get get past for you know, get past this, this horrible event? And how do we keep growing this business? So there were a lot of questions to answer and, and, and I think the biggest thing was, at some point, I realized that the the I call it the buyers lens in my in my dream exit. Like I got to start looking at this business like I’m a buyer, like this business is for sale, because I had not been looking at that before and I thought wow, if I really want to create value in this business, I have to start looking at it like that because I if I if I operate a business with a buyers lens, that I know two things for sure. I know that the business is going to improve, and I know that I’m going to improve as the leader or as the entrepreneur I didn’t know how I didn’t know how much but I knew that those two things would definitely be true because I’d been telling people all along like everything we focus on gets better people. It just happens. Everything we focus on and everything we don’t focus on gets worse but I hadn’t been taking that advice myself because not you know, thinking about being a business owner and entrepreneurs like you don’t get asked the hard questions very often. Right, especially if you’re like, if you’re having success you don’t you don’t get asked the hard question your people don’t ask you a hard question you don’t ask yourself hard questions. And I was not doing that. But but that was that was a very difficult thing for me to get to get past and I think it informed a lot of who I am now. And a lot of what I’m teaching other people as well.

Brittany Anderson  32:16

I would say that’s a powerful less than fear and what you had to overcome both, you know, for your business and emotionally too. I mean, that’s, that’s huge. And it’s also a testament, you think back you know, we all have challenges and we all have, excuse me have a really shitty things that happen. Yeah, and you know, it’s one of those things where, again, we’re not alone, right? Like you’re not alone in your entrepreneurial journey. And I think that’s so important for our listeners to remember is that there’s going to be setbacks. There’s going to be frustrations and challenges and roadblocks and things that feel like they’re getting in the way. But having the right people there to guide you is really what matters and being able to put yourself in the room with people who can help you. Your dream exit or your business growth or whatever that looks like for you. I mean, that’s what’s most important on a lighter note here, my you’ve got your podcast, How’d it happen? You’ve got your dream exit, you got all these great things. So what are you most excited about right now?

Mike Malatesta  33:22

Well, I’m most excited about the dream exit. I just like I was saying before I just feel like I’ve this is this is uniquely something I was uniquely built for or constructed for over a period of time. And there’s such a need for this kind of help for this kind of assistance for this kind of program, at least based on my experience. And I just I’m just very excited about the opportunity to help people prepare and get the dream exit that they deserve. They just I mean they work so hard to just work so hard, and I can help them do it. And so I’m really jazzed about about that. I mean, I love doing my podcast, too. I don’t want to I don’t want to be but that my podcasts sort of is I mean, it’s called How’d it happen? As you said, I do two episodes a week one, I have a longer form conversation with, you know, an amazingly successful person like you, for example, and we we get to, you know the root of how it happened for them but also why it matters to my listeners. And that’s really, those are really powerful conversations. And then I also do a solo episode, once a week two that I call free thinking Friday and that’s when I really get a chance to talk about things that interests me things that are lighting me up things that I’ve heard people I’ve met concepts I’ve been exposed to. And it’s all in it’s all in the with a goal of opening people’s eyes to what’s possible and and of course, in the podcast, I get to talk, you know about dream exits with people from time to time. So, that’s always exciting. You know, the podcast is what’s so great about the podcasts that I’ve done, like 400 and some episodes now is that you don’t know where all the dots are going to be connected. Like I don’t I don’t do my podcast to sell anything. I’m not. I don’t I’m not doing that. I’m just trying to engage my my brain and my audience with things that matter to them. And I just feel like I fill myself with so many things that are helpful for my own thinking in addition to the people that are listening that it’s it’s like almost like a custom design school. For me, and and again doing that during the podcast was something that came out of planning for meaning after an exit. So I’ve talked about several things, the podcasts, the book, all of these things, how having goals set to do those things. After I I, I sold my business was was like to me that was like okay, I’m going to explore my creative side. Here are two things that I’m going to do and there’s a bunch of other things too, but it got me started I wasn’t lost. After I wasn’t trying to find meaning and purpose. I knew I knew what I wanted to get into and I thought that they would lead to maximum meaning and purpose and and those have led me into other things that led me to be talking to you today and even to have met you and met Brian and that’s my point. Start early.

Brittany Anderson  37:09

You know, I think number one, I’m so glad that you talked about the podcast, but I was not gonna let you off the hook without a shameless plug for that.

Mike Malatesta  37:16

Thank you. You know,

Brittany Anderson  37:18

I think it’s just it’s so inspiring. When you talk about how it happened. And you know, the stories and the conversations about pedophiles moments and time where people are like, Yeah, this is when things changed for me. It is very rare. You ever meet somebody where they’re like, Yeah, you know, one day I thought of a great idea and about two months later, I was a millionaire. Right? That’s social media. And that’s what you know, whatever’s put out there and wants you to believe it’s a journey. And it’s a long run and it’s exhausting sometimes, but hearing from other people who have achieved things that you want to achieve or accomplish what you want to accomplish. It’s so inspiring and those conversations are so great. So I’m so glad you brought that up. Oh, thank you. So Mike, I would like to know as we wrap up today’s episode, before I ask my very last question, if somebody wants to get a hold of you to explore the dream exit. They want to talk about your podcast or whatever it is. Yeah. Can they get a hold of you? Haven’t they reached

Mike Malatesta  38:18

out? Okay, so to find out everything about me, my websites probably the best place to go. That’s my name. Mike. Malatesta ma l a t e s ta.com. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. That’s where I’m most active. That’s my name Mike Malatesta. You can email me the dream exit@gmail.com And just put in the subject line. Britney or, or the name of the podcast ultimate. Its ultimate advisor right. Ultimate advisor. Yeah, ultimate advisor podcast. Put that in there. I’ll make sure that gets my attention. And of course, while my podcast is on the website, but you can subscribe or follow my podcast, How’d it happen? You can find out on any podcast platform and if you find me another way, I’ll answer to that too.

Brittany Anderson  39:13

We’ll be sure to put everything in the show notes too, so that you’ve got quick access to it as you’re listening into this. And even if nothing else, you check out the dream exit. I mean, I think there’s so much to be said about the playbook about what Mike’s created and so much value there. So Mike, you talked about how you had you know, you had your big, big exit or exits. You had your focus on your book and your podcast. Now you’ve created this dream, dream exit. What is your biggest aspiration? That you now have for your future?

Mike Malatesta  39:48

Well, I’ll, I’ll nail down to a few words. And I’ve been living this for for several years now. So my this is how I think about everything options, not obligations, three words, options. Not obligations, and I try to live my life with with those three words, always ringing in the background. So what does that mean? For me? Well, right now it means continuing to do my podcast it means continuing to help people as the dream exit expert. And by the way, so this is a stat I read from UBS recently 81% of business owners entrepreneurs who have sold their business say that they wish they had put more time into the process of selling the business so if nothing, if nothing that I’ve said resonates with anyone today, that should resonate with you because those are people who’ve been through it, and are being asked a question and they’re answering it 80% saying, I wish I had put more effort into my planning for my exit that would have helped me I would have had a better outcome. And the other thing I’m doing is I’m living I’ve been an entrepreneur and I continue to be an entrepreneur. I never don’t want to be an entrepreneur, Brittany because it keeps me sharp and humble. And helps me with with you know, me being a person who can be in your shoes or my clients shoes and so I have I have a partner in a landscape supply business that we are converting or converging into global almost, eventually global recycling business. And I continue to invest in in many startups and mature companies because I that’s how I learn. I I learned and I put myself around entrepreneurs as frequently as I can, because I don’t know where else I could be getting the kind of education I get and being around those kinds of people and supporting them.

Brittany Anderson  42:07

You know, I think that’s so valuable and everything you just laid out there. When somebody’s coming in. You’re an advisor, you’re listening, whether it’s on behalf of yourself or for your clients. I literally what Mike just laid out there is a result of his own planning. So I love that I had to write down options, not obligations, because I think I mean when I think about wealth planning to in general, that’s what we’re trying to help people create right there all lives. So be it your business exit or just their wealth plan in general. I think that’s just cool. So, Mike, thank you so much for sharing your brilliance with us today. We know that time is the only commodity we can’t get more of. So we’re so grateful for you for showing up.

Mike Malatesta  42:44

Well, thank you so much for having me on. I’m grateful to you and to Brian for all the while for being you for being on both of you being on my podcast for you guys just being supportive of of me and and for giving me access to talk to your audience. I hope we I hope there was some value to everyone today.

Brittany Anderson  43:08

Well, that wraps up today’s episode of The Ultimate advisor podcast. We’ll catch you right back here next week.

Mike Malatesta  43:16

recording stopped my friend. Oh, thank you. Yeah, well done on your end as well like Yeah, I like your style.

Brittany Anderson  43:25

I like I love facilitating conversations and like I get the problem is if I could talk for like hours, people. I’ll probably have the world’s longest podcast one day.

Mike Malatesta  43:35

Yeah, yeah, you’ll be Dan Carlin and Joe Rogan and all those guys, right? I’m doing 12 hours.

Brittany Anderson  43:45

What I’ll do is I have all of your collaterals and everything like all the links and everything. So we will get that into our show notes. You’ll get an email from Bernadette or Bae on our team when it goes live. So she’ll send you the link to everything so you can share your expertise with your audience. Obviously, if you need anything in the meantime, I’m happy to help. One more thing I have for you. I can’t remember. So I think Brian and I or one of us shared with you, one of the like health and longevity verses that we have been working on but I think the dates didn’t work.

Mike Malatesta  44:23

Yeah, that was a while ago. Yes. Like, probably months, like a couple months ago. Yeah.

Brittany Anderson  44:29

Yeah. So we have a new event coming up. And I’m gonna find here actually, ironically enough. Just got here we go. So I’m going to forge you an email it actually came from my paintings but Brian and I are hosting an event at the wizard Academy down in Austin, Texas, November so it’s it’s super limited. On space because the wizard Academy is only I think it can only hold like 28 people or something. It’s Roy Williams. Have you ever heard of him before?

Mike Malatesta  45:05

I don’t know that I have.

Brittany Anderson  45:07

So he’s like a marketing genius. Kind of reclusive. But he built the wizard Academy. It literally looks like a castle. And it’s like he’s going to do I think a four hour session. Mike canings is going to do a session on AI. Brian’s going to do a session on wealth planning and then our health partners are going to do a couple of sessions to But basically, it’s it’s the people in the room. That is incredible. So not only would you get like that full picture of what we shared with you before, but we’re talking like high level entrepreneurs like yourself coming together my past some crazy, amazing connections. So I’ll just send you an email that he just sent out on our behalf and check it out. If you’re interested. Let me know. And if not totally fine, too. But I just wanted to make sure you got kind of a first look at it. With everything that you’re working on with the big business exits and all that crazy stuff. It just might be a good opportunity.

Mike Malatesta  46:09

Okay, great. Thank you.

Brittany Anderson  46:11

Yeah, for sure. It’s all over. We’ll get you into the production lineup for the podcast and get you produced. And if you need anything else, please reach out,

Mike Malatesta  46:19

let us know. Okay, we’ll do Brittany, thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate you.

Brittany Anderson  46:24

Absolutely. My pleasure.

Mike Malatesta  46:25

Alright, yep. Bye bye.