Episode. Building a Life That Holds All of You with The Inspiration Engineer Cauveé
Transcript
Cauveé - 00:00.11
Society's paradigm is the it's so funny they say be different be unique and then when you choose that then they're like well give me something that I understand that's something similar that's like you and so I say that same I didn't feel like an imposter I felt like my time in my season ain't happened yet and it's still ain't happened as much success as I've created it's I'm still in the process of becoming.
But here's what I will tell everybody. I've read over a hundred books on success, entrepreneurship and all the things, no arrogance, no ego. You will not find, will not find one success story that does not have, write this down, a test. Write what down? No test, no testimony, period. You're not gonna find somebody that did not go through the pain of discipline because there's two pains and that's it. You just gotta pick your pain.
There's pain of discipline or pain of regret.
Theme Music - 01:10.146
The ownership game with Gary Montalvo. What would it take to get into the driver's seat of your life and leave your mark? The ownership game starts now.
Gary Montalvo
We live in a world of labels. And I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. Labels help us understand something. They tell us what to call it, how to interact with it, where to place it. But what happens when none of these existing labels quite fit you? What happens when the language the world gives you feels too small or limiting for the vision that you're trying to build?
My guest today, Cave, knows exactly what that tension feels like. Because Cave is someone who defies easy definition. He's a coach, an artist, entrepreneur, a brand strategist, a speaker. But his chosen label is the inspiration engineer. Aside from his broad range of talents, he's also got a remarkable backstory. This is someone who started selling out concerts at 18, then later found himself sleeping under a bridge. Broke?
Broken and burnt out. He's someone who's had to unlearn everything he thought success was supposed to look like and rebuild it entirely new. New identity, new mission, all from scratch. In this conversation, we talk about what it means to pivot.
Not just your brand or your business, but also your internal operating system. We talk about imposter syndrome, creator burnout, multi-passionate identities, and why stacking your skills is the new secret to long-term success. If you've ever felt like you're too much for the world to understand, if you're torn between what you're supposed to be doing and what you actually want to do, what lights you up, if you know that you're meant for more,
Gary Montalvo - 03:07.47
but can't quite figure out how to package it all. Well, this episode is for you. Let's get into it. All right, Cave, brother. I am really excited to talk to you. I think that, you know, when I saw your profile, your pitch profile, I was like, this dude is really interesting. he like, you know, you've got a fascinating backstory, which I...
Definitely want to start there. And, but you just also just have like this bag of tools, a bag of tricks, a bag of skills and talents. And I think what's interesting about you is that not a lot of people know how to make all that work together. And I think you seem to be doing it. So I definitely want to talk to you about that as well. But thank you, cause I know you're also traveling and you're here in San Paulo right now.
Not jealous at all.
That was really quick.
So listen, why don't we start, you tell me where, I really want to get into your backstory. Where do you think we should start in the story? What's the entry point, you know, when you start telling the story?
Cauveé - 04:23.214
Absolutely. know, first and foremost, I'm grateful to be here, thankful for everybody that is listening, tuned in, tapped in. We really appreciate it. We're really grateful. I always take it back to where it really started, which, Gary, I was five years old and I talk about how my father gave me hero speeches, right? He would tell me from the age five to age 10, you know, son, anything you want to do, you can do. Anything you want to be, you can be. You set your mind to it, you can do it. And I was already writing poetry at this time.
So now age 11, I get into my very first mentor's home studio. And he's an R &B singer. He's one of these guys we hear about who write a professional song and then an artist steals it. And so if you guys know R &B, Kenneth Babyface Edmonds, his cousin had a song called 24-7. 24-7, My mentor wrote that record. So I get to hear this record. And then he says to me, he says, hey, you want to...
Make a beat? And I was like, yeah, like, duh, you know, of course, of course I want to make a beat. So I started hitting pads, hitting buttons, and I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm having an absolute blast. And I go into what we know is called a peak state. We were there for five hours, it felt like I was literally there for three minutes. And I knew with absolute certainty, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. All right. So the next day, I'm from the Midwest. And one of the states that I'm from is known for basketball.
And me and my dad were playing basketball in the driveway. I said, dad, dad, I figured out what I'm gonna do. I figured out what I'm gonna be with my life. And my dad said, what is it son? What is it that you're gonna do? What are you gonna be? And I was like, I'm gonna be a musician, right? And if you guys have seen the Coco Disney movie, it was just that exact moment. My dad said, you can't do that. And he immediately became public enemy number one, like immediately. And so at age 18, my story was different because I was successful at age 18.
I was locally famous. We sold out a concert of 1,209 people. I organized it, I promoted it, I did all the things, made the school $12,000 and I did it for a government project called a PIG Project, Project in Government is what it stands for, as my final. And so they argue that because it was my final, I didn't or I couldn't make the money from it, but they made 12,000. Now, I'm 18 years old, I'm naive. I'm, you know, a lot of kids at age, they're not thinking about the big picture.
Cauveé - 06:44.654
I'm like, hey, I'm famous, I can do it again. What I didn't respect, what I knew early on was I'm not gonna do like most of these other rappers do. The Jay-Z's of the world, not knocking these people, it just wasn't for me. Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, 50 Cent, these guys sell heroin or cocaine or meth, and they use that capital as venture capital to launch their business. I don't respect that. If you're gonna sell drugs, sell vitamins. So for me, I was like, all right, that's not what I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna go that path.
I'll just do it again. I'll just, if I did it once, I can do it again. So I ended up going to Ball State University and become again, as a freshman, well known on campus. You couldn't even log into bsu.edu without seeing this concert that I was promoting on their page. No fraternity, no organization never been done before by an independent student. Long story short.
We now are, everybody knows this is a campus that holds about 16,000 students. I did it all day. There's no parties, there's no games, there's no events, there's no nothing. And we are now doing a 3,300 person auditorium. I'm curious, Gary, if we just sold out two years ago at 1,209, what would you guesstimate how many tickets we sold for the sophomore concert? 3,300 capacity seats.
3300 and you what was the first number 12? you sold anything 20%, you'd be really, really improving. But I something tells me you did a lot more than that.
Did 1209 now we're in auditorium
Cauveé - 08:17.55
Please go 333 tickets. So just shy of 10%. Now here's the reality, right? 300 tickets sold sells out a majority of venues in a majority of cities, New York included, right? You've got a line out the door if you've got 300 people that show up for most venues, okay? However, in an auditorium that large,
You can literally hear a pin drop. I was destroyed. It only goes about two to three rows back. So put in, did a much bigger show. We had dancers, we had lights, we had the smoke, we had all the things. And because of it, and every day people would ask me, you know, after that concert, I couldn't go to class. They were like, so how was your show? And I was like, you should have FNKed. Like, why didn't you come? You said you were gonna come, right? And it was just this bitterness. So I called my dad long story short and I said, hey, I gotta get out of here.
My dad was, I told him what was going on. And I said, I'm gonna go ahead and go to Atlanta. And this is the time when Ludacris and TI and Jermaine Dupree and everybody's starting to pop out of Atlanta. This is like 2006. And I said, I'm gonna go ahead and just go down there. No job, no money, I'm going. My father was like, I think you need to come home, regroup, get your footing and rebuild. So those two or three moments majorly impacted who I was as an artist, the artist side of me, all right?
So from 2006, fast forward to 2011, 2012, I'm working for University of Phoenix. Now in between this time, I'm mastering sales at all these different companies. I was a job hopper like to the, if you can have job hopping as a profession, I was a absolute celebrity at it, all right? And I worked at a lot of different companies that are well-known names, but the reason why University of Phoenix is the only name that I give is because I was an enrollment counselor. And at this time I had already mastered events, marketing.
Selling, the psychology of selling, sitting with top performers, but I had never been a mentor or a coach as I am today. And I had my very first student, her name was Melissa Briscoe. I helped her get her associate's degree. All right. And for those out there that may be international and associate's degree for us in America is like a two year program, right? Or a year and a half, two year program. So next to that first concert,
Cauveé - 10:31.298
This is the biggest win that I had ever had. As a musician up to this point, I'm still doing events at night, Gary. I'm still doing shows and events. And we're doing like, know, 80 here, 100 capacity here, 50 there. Like we're still doing all right. But when it comes to building a business, you need a larger lump sum of capital, which is why so many people go for angel investors or they go for venture capital. You need larger amounts of lump sum because money is the bloodline of any business. And I couldn't get it to go to the next level. Like I couldn't take it to the next level.
So that everybody understands today, it ain't changed. Every time you stream an artist that you love, it's 0.004 is how much is made on that stream. And that's gotta be split amongst a publicist, the publicist, the marketing team, the record label, their band, like all the people. right? So music still hasn't changed. It's still one of the hardest businesses to make money in. All right, so now bringing it to where we're at today. So 2016, until this time, I started mastering marketing.
I was like, I can't make this money thing work as an artist, because the money's not there. Didn't understand it from a business perspective. So what I said was, all right, I'm going to do social media management, because I'm good at marketing, for hospitality businesses. That's where I started. And I started getting success for them. And then, now we're at 2016, I moved to Austin, Texas. While I'm in Austin, Texas, I'm going to the Capital Factory. Shout out to Joshua Bear and those guys. I'm going to all the different…like WeWork and all the different businesses that focuses on startups. And what I'm learning is how the Facebooks of the world are built. And I was like, yo, this is the same exact principle, same philosophy of building an artist brand, but it comes.
Totally different. On the record label side, you get what's called a 360 deal, which is technically slavery of your brand, slavery of your identity, really, and it's called owning your masters, though figure. That's what the music is called if whoever owns the masters. Matter of fact, Nicki Minaj and Jay-Z are battling a deal right now. She ain't get paid out for some things for titles. So this is like a real thing, right? Having access to your masters. So what's interesting is,
Cauveé - 12:43.426
you have to build an MVP, it's called a minimum viable product, which is traditionally about a thousand customers in order to build and scale from. Once you get to this point as an entrepreneur, right, you're able to go get usually 200K up to 5 million on a seed round raise, all right? On the record label side, that's $100,000 loan and it's a bad loan, okay? It's a really bad loan. So I didn't know any of this, but what I'm seeing is these parallels.
And this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that I want to give you guys today really struck a nerve. And it was at the same time that I was understanding what is what. And I was like, whoa, that's crazy. So here's this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that I want you guys to write down if you're driving, come back to this and make sure that you get it. right. He said, as to methods, there may be a million in some. He said, but the man, and I'm going to add, or woman, that can successfully grasp the principle may successfully select his own method.
All right, so now you take that and I'm seeing while entrepreneurs want to get on podcasts, artists want to get on the radio. You still need to build an MVP. And I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to build a hybrid. I'm going to play in both of these sandboxes. And at this time, what was happening was I was changing my identity. We'll get into that here in a moment. You're like, what do you mean change your identity? I was changing my identity based on who I was talking to. OK, and so as I'm seeing these parallels.
I was like, yo, what would that look like if Tony Robbins and Drake had a baby? Like if they had a baby, what would that look like? And I was fascinated and blown by that idea. And so I said, that's how I'm even gonna explain this. Cause I didn't know I was gonna be what I am today. But when people would ask me, I'd be like, do you know who they are? And they'd be like, yeah. I'd be like, okay, well imagine if there's a baby, man. I'm the baby. Like I really am. And so that was kind of the development. And so the fact, know, last thing I'll just say in closing on that.
2016, I had my very first high success as a coach. My very first student broke six figures in revenue, became Zillow's number one Northwest Division up in Seattle for a $34 billion company. And then I was on my way. And that was like the next major milestone. And I was like, okay, cool. And then Eric Thomas and a guy named Peter Vogue, they put their speeches on hip hop beats.
Cauveé - 15:05.016
And that's how I knew like, okay, the market is ready for this idea because now I'm seeing it from these hybrid modalities. that's that in the position.
Okay, he just gave us like five master classes. Okay, I want to just button up a couple of things in your personal story because I know that. So number one, you said your dad became a public enemy number one. But you didn't really break that down what it meant. And then it seemed like he was still part of your life. how did that evolve? And how did you complete that? Because it seemed like you were still he was still your dad.
So I like to explain it this way, because different cultures are different and I have more access to more cultures now, right? Kids, teenagers, young men and women, traditionally we want to honor our parents, especially if you come from like India or you're in these cultures where it's like you really do what your parents say, right? Like whatever they tell you, they might even arrange marriage. I mean, it might go to that level, right? My parents had a vision for me. They wanted me to be an attorney.
Okay, when I went off path, they're not entrepreneurs. They were trying to protect me because in their mind, success is getting a pension, right? Pensions existed at that time. So for me, it didn't line up because you've been giving me this, you've been brainwashing me with this message that I believed. And then when I tell you what I'm going to do, you tell me I can't do it. So what was interesting was, and this is what I've learned.
Cauveé - 16:42.126
They heard my music from age 11, and it was crappy music by the way, Gary, we're just gonna call it what it is, from age 11 all the way up to age 22. It took them 11 years to become fans of mine. At that second concert, while I'm going through misery and my concert flopped numbers-wise, I take a huge loss, they became fans, the irony of that.
So I say this saying is now fully understanding it. And I tell a lot of kids, teenagers, like, hey, honor your parents. If you live with them, you do need to do what they're telling you to do because you are under their roof. However, their life is not your life. They are not fortune tellers or psychics to know what is designed for you. Most parents want you to be successful monetarily. They don't have to support you.
That's usually what it is all about. So with that stated, you don't have to do the profession that they admire for you to honor your parents. And that was really what I didn't understand. I thought he was against me. He wasn't against me. He just wasn't an entrepreneur and a musician and didn't understand it. So it was like, this isn't safe. Go get a degree and do what's safe or what's common. And that was what I've come to understand.
Okay. And I know there was also some homelessness at some point that I read in your bio, but you skipped that over. So I wanted to kind of bring that in because I think it paints a picture as to just how bad things got for you as you were trying to figure this out.
I know sometimes when we're telling the story, we're like, we give the highlight reel, but I always try to go into the messy part so that people can really feel seen. Because when you're in those points, you think you're the only one.
Cauveé - 18:37.322
It's great, know, I like to tell that from that angle because majority of people think about it as they're going to get their first win right away. And you might, it just depends. I got a first win, but I didn't get paid for it. Like I said, I got 12 K for that school, but they didn't give me a dime, right? Should have sued them actually. But anyway, that's another story for another day. So at 2016, that was when I was homeless. As I was helping my student break six figures in revenue.
I'm sleeping out on the Austin 290 bridge, walking to Starbucks as my office and working from Starbucks every day and then sleeping in my gym or sleeping outside or sleeping somewhere wherever I can find a place to sleep. So it was ironic. And the dichotomy of that is me understanding marketing. I was also a part of the network for InfluenCif and I was getting published and I was a writer and publishing content for them while I was creating this success story and this case study to build from. But what was so funny was as they were writing about me in Huffington Post, I'm literally sleeping outside in a sleeping bag in the cold winter in Austin, Texas. And so a lot of people, look at that. That's crazy.
This is so good.
This is so good. I love this. I mean, I don't love this for you, but I love that this came out and I'm so, thank you Spirit for making me ask that question because it, you know, one of the things that often stops people, you know, I have this conversation all the time. It's like, you have a message, you have a purpose, you have, you know, a gift, you have medicine that can impact people, that can make a difference for people.
Gary Montalvo - 20:22.57
And we stop ourselves from sharing it because we don't think we're ready, because we don't see ourselves as like, well, who am I, right? Who am I to, you know, or I don't have my shit together. So why should I, you know, go ahead and be out here putting myself out there and, and, and trying to coach other people. And I do, I am a firm believer that if you're coaching.
you need to be your biggest student, biggest product and you need to be coached. Like there's an integrity issue there. But I love that you were, I mean, I have to imagine that you were dealing with some of that fraud stuff. I don't know, were you? Like, what was your mindset when you were doing that and you were coaching this person and putting yourself out there? you just like...
F this, I got this, or were you like really dealing with that imposter syndrome at the time?
I never, in my experience that I can recall, I don't recall dealing with imposter syndrome. I've always been super confident, because again, I was literally famous at age 18.
Well that must be nice.
Cauveé - 21:34.85
Well, I'm just saying it's not, it's it's a little different, right? Because once we bring that sought after, like a lot of people, a lot of people experience success. It's not, it's very rare people experience fame. Even though I was, it was local fame, the city that I'm from is not small. And so, I mean, it was, was, was the fame. It was just a very small taste of it. So I say that saying when you have that as your first kind of foundation to build from.
you realize, and that's what I realized, like the possibilities are endless. I just proved my dad wrong. So you're also standing on that, right? Now you're standing on, you helped somebody get this degree. So there was a lot of things that for me enabled a lot of confidence, all right? But I think that society's paradigm is, it's so funny. They say be different, be unique. And then when you choose that, then they're like, well, give me something that I understand that's something similar that's like you.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so I say that same. I didn't feel like an imposter. I felt like my time and my season ain't happened yet. And it's ain't happened as much success as I've created. It's I'm still in the process of becoming. But here's what I will tell everybody. I've read over 100 books on success, entrepreneurship and all the things no arrogance, no ego, you will not find will not find one success story.
that does not have, write this down, a test. Write what down? No test, no testimony, period. You're not gonna find somebody that did not go through the pain of discipline because there's two pains and that's it. You just gotta pick your pain. There's pain of discipline or pain of regret. And pain of regret are the, I call them deteriorating children and no disrespect to my parents. I love my parents, but they're like the, hate Monday people.
Cauveé - 23:26.36
Nobody, you don't want to go to work. You don't want to go to your job. And not that there's anything wrong with a corporate job. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is if you hate what you do and you're only doing it for a check, you're not using all the greatness and the gifts and the things for which you were designed. You are settling. And one day you might look back on life because we're all going to exit this first round of fleshly life.
And so when you exit, looking back on your life, I didn't want to be a should have, would have, could have person. I never wanted that. So you got to choose your pain. And all I'll say is I was already aware too, like when you go into the gym, sucks. You're going to have 14 days to 21 days, your muscles are sore, but it looks good when you're naked and you've been in there for a few days, 90 days in, 100 days in. You're starting to see a little bit of those.
though, you know, maybe the abs are starting to show a little bit or maybe a little bit of muscles coming in. You're like, ooh, that looks good. So this is what it is. And the last thing I'll say, biblically, it says, you know, when the woman is in birth pain, she focused on that birth pain. But once the baby's born, you no longer remember the labor part of it. And that's what my message is for everybody listening today is you're not going to get away from, people don't want the pain, Gary. That's just the fact. They don't want it.
they will. The shenanigans that people will do to avoid the discomfort that comes with growth and stepping outside of the box. mean, it's shenanigans like all kinds of, what's the word I'm looking for? Like just scams, the way that we scam ourselves and lie to ourselves and create obstacles and create distractions and avoid and all of that. No, we go through great length.
to do that and something that you are really pointing to, I think to the misconception, one of the sort of myth is that I feel people who are working their way to the top can kind of fall into is that a pitfall, is that successful people are always confident, always have the answers, always a go-getter.
Gary Montalvo - 25:43.974
And you're kind of displaying some of that, but I also want to point that I think that confidence gets nurtured and developed when you know yourself to be someone who is honoring their instincts, honoring what God is putting an idea in you, and you are taking action on that idea. You are...
you are seeking it out, you are doing the work. mean, if you are selling out a concert at 18 and some of the other stuff you shared, like there's a certain amount of hustle and work and grit that you are already displaying at that age. When you do that, it creates an environment for you where confidence is nurtured. And the opposite is true when you are avoiding those messages that are being delivered to you.
When you are not following your instincts, when you are not following the calls that are being placed on you to step into a greater purpose, you know that about yourself. And so it erodes your confidence. It makes you feel like you can't do it. And that is where imposter syndrome comes in. Because imposter syndrome is not like, I have it all figured out. No. That feeling comes in because you know there's an inauthenticity inside of you. You know that.
There is something that you're being called to do and you are ignoring, are pretending, you are avoiding. And that is where I think that feeling comes in. even though maybe Covey displayed confidence at an early age, I also think he was doing the work to nurture that confidence in some ways. I I don't want to skip over that. Yeah, I had all the things.
This is huge that I learned, right? Oprah Winfrey hired Tony Robbins because she was suffering from imposter syndrome. Now she's Oprah Winfrey. A brand doesn't get much bigger than that as a personal brand, right? But she hired him because of that very thing. So I think imposter syndrome is very common. I think that what we may want to consider and understand is that even the greatest people
Cauveé - 28:02.284
Have coaches. Even the greatest people miss the greatness in others. Gary Vaynerchuk has publicly disclosed he passed on Uber three times as an investor. He had three times that he could have invested early on and he didn't think they were going to be successful. It's Uber, okay? I was in a mastermind in a community.
With a guy that was making $7,500 an hour as a public speaker. And yes, I had Toastmasters on my belt, but I had never been an official public speaker. And even in our mastermind, which mind you, is a supposed to be a supportive community. And you want to do this, guys. You want to be in community with people that are usually dreamers, visionaries, optimists, because 85 % of people are living a life that they don't like.
This is statistically proven that 80 % of people worldwide go into jobs that they don't like. So if you're talking to people that don't love what they do and then you're on a path, you know, loving or discovering how to love what you do, what do you expect people are going to tell you? But in this example here, this gentleman named Coy making $7,500 a speech, I said to him, I want to be a Ted speaker. And he goes, you can't do that. That was gift of ferocity number three.
I was like, okay, bet, run it. I'm the type of person when you tell me I can't do something, that gives me fuel. And for some people, that gives them discouragement. And you have to understand that, again, nobody has your life and knows your heart and your spirit and your willingness to go through whatever it is that you gotta go through. And I tell people, you gotta have a no matter what mindset to be successful.
If you don't have a no matter what attitude, like whatever comes, imposter syndrome, grief, Arnold Schwarzenegger's father or grandfather died right when he was training for Mr. Strongman. If you don't have the ability to be emotionally resilient, what David Dagens talks about, callousing your heart, callousing your spirit, to go through these things, I'm gonna be very honest, it's gonna sound like I'm being pessimistic, but I'm not. This isn't built for you.
Cauveé - 30:17.612
You have to understand that you're going to come across many people. And you also, I think it's wise to be discerning enough to say, I understand that I am always going to be evolving. And so you never arrived. Matthew McConaughey, as successful as he says, he said, I'm just getting the version that I am today. I'm still chasing the best version of who I'm going to be. So that is always the case. And that's all I want to share with our listeners today is like,
Everybody is in the process of becoming. So if you are always in the process of becoming your greatest future self, then technically by definition, aren't you always a imposter using that verbiage? So it's something for us to think about.
Beautiful. I want to pivot and talk a little bit about.
This idea of, you started to touch on it earlier. It's this idea that breaking out of the box, but then the system wants you to be in a box. And then to be marketable, you kind of need to fit into a box that people can understand. society is really designed to have labels, right? We need to understand what to call you. We need to understand how to talk to you. And then there's certain people, and I think you're one of these people that don't really fit into box very comfortably. mean the whole idea of, you just said was ridiculous to be honest, like marrying if Drake and Tony Robbins had a baby, you know, it's like an absurd idea, right? But it's like you, you're like, yeah, that's what I'm doing and it is what you're doing. I, you know, I think there's a lot of people that struggle with, with, I think, well, first of all, I think everybody struggles with, with the idea of
Gary Montalvo - 32:09.954
Their authentic self. You know, as a leadership coach, one of the biggest things I have to really help people achieve is finding their authentic expression of leadership because people have these models, these ideas, they watch the politician, the church leader, their parents, and they think, well, those are the leaders in my life. That's how I have to emulate leadership. So I do think there's a process where we, you know, have to shed some of that and really find ourselves authentically. But I think what you're doing is even more difficult.
Because you're creating a new lane, right? You're almost changing market conditions in some way. it seems like an uphill battle in some ways. And I think I want you to talk about your experience doing that, what advice you have in that. yeah, let's just unpack that a little.
Yeah, so as I said, you've got skills to master. I'm going to walk it through the story side of it, and then we're going to come back to just, you know, as far as like the pros and cons, things that I would do different and what have you. So first and foremost, I like to give sports analogy so that we get it. You've got two types of basketball players for people that like basketball. You've got a Dennis Rodman, who is a specialist, and all he does is rebound.
He plays defense and other things, of course, but specifically he is known as probably one of, if not the greatest rebounder of all time. And then you've got a player who's playing today named Draymond Green, who is the leader of the Golden State Warriors. He is the voice, he is the defense, he is the anchor, but he passes, he can score. He sets great picks, he gets Steph Curry open. He does a lot of things as a generalist. Some of us are generalists, which is what Calve is. Some of us are specialists.
So getting enough self-awareness to figure out where you are on that spectrum is very wise. Now, how did this happen for me? I told you at age five, I was a poet. Then I became a successful event organizer, event promoter, doing production. I was audio engineering. I was singing. I was rapping. Okay, that was what I was doing on the creative side. Then on the corporate side, I had bastard sales. And when MySpace came out, I was a social media marketer.
Cauveé - 34:32.055
Okay, so now we've got nine skills already. And there's a pessimist side of this where they say the jack of all trades is the master of none. You could choose to align to that philosophy or you might align to the Jim Rowe philosophy that says the more skills that you have, the more people you can help. They're both true, but it depends on.
What you identify as true. Matter of fact, I got an album coming out soon later, just a quick selfish plug called King of All Trades. We got to change this paradigm. Okay? You could be a jester, you could be a king of all trades. All right? Now I say that say, for me, I literally was inauthentic to myself at this time. When I would go to chamber of commerce, I was a salesperson or a marketer. When I was around musicians, I was a musician or a poet or a singer or a writer or whatever it was that I needed to be. And I kept changing.
Depending on who I was talking to. And that made me feel inauthentic. I started feeling like a liar, like I was like, you know, deceiving people. And so I came to my community and I said, guys, this is a problem that I'm having, right? And at this time, now I have been doing some strategy work and some coach work and I can listen to all the skills. And I said, hey, I need to create some, AI didn't exist back then. So I need to create some titles that could represent me and we came up with 10 titles, they voted and went from 10 to five, five to two, and then they chose inspiration engineer and the inspiration engineer was born. And I was like, okay, cool. So when you start talking about breaking the box, if you guys fall into a situation right now today where you have a lot of skills mastered.
The hardest part about this, Gary, is making them all come together as a puzzle. That is the hardest part. For those that understand funnels and understand systemizing and automation and understand bringing people through a narrative and then through a conversation to then get conversion, that is where it gets difficult. So I'm now gonna go back to what we said we were gonna touch on, which is what not to do. What not to do, do not launch multiple pieces of yourself.
Cauveé - 36:41.966
Okay, without systemizing and scaling one of those, meaning I had a course, I sold it on Udemy. I don't even know what the course was, but that was my first time making money in my sleep, right? So before I went to the next offer or the next thing, I should have put everything all in on that course, got it to automate where I don't even have to touch it. I'm now making money, it's monetizing itself. My team runs it or AI runs it or whatever runs it. Now you pivot to the next thing.
That was what I should have done. I did not do that. That is the hardest part for humans when you do different things because they're like, okay, help me place you. And now they're trying to just stereotype it really quick. That's why stereotypes exist in their mind, just so it's like, okay, got it. Now I find maybe like 9,000, 10,000 people, the Tony Robbins and Drake parable, and it got a laugh 88 % of the time. I was always saying, you know who they are? They say, yeah.
Say, imagine they made a baby, I'm the baby. Sometimes we do this and you'll see startups that do this a lot. When they're building a new software, they'll say, it's like this and it's similar to that. Like we are the blank, they'll say like, you know, whatever brand, we are the this of that. The other thing that's also really interesting, going back to artistry, artists emulate too. They emulate too to find their voice. Think about it. When Drake first came out, people thought he was Lil Wayne. When R. Kelly first came out, they thought he was Aaron Hall. So you're trying to find...
Who am I? What is my authentic expression? It's with all humans, folks. So I say that saying, when you are breaking out of the box, you want to make sure that you are emulating within the box. As they say, you always want to stand on the shoulders of other giants. Unfortunately, I didn't have a Kevin Hart or the Rock to be my mentor to show me how they did it as a personal brand portfolio where you've got all these moving parts and moving pieces. But I say that saying is going back to that Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, the person that can find the principle can select his or her own methods. I found the principle of what works. And then I said, this is what I'm doing. And if people don't understand it, they'll understand it in the right moment. They'll understand it in the right time. And the one last thing I want to say, and I'll say this in closing on this topic.
Cauveé - 38:59.256
Jamie Foxx does multiple things. He did it from the very beginning as a comedian, a singer, songwriter, an actor. Nobody questioned that he could do all three. And I think forward now, because he's a director and some other that nobody ever questioned it. So why is it with celebrities, they get this pass like, because you're well known, you can do that. But because I'm not known, I can't do that. According to who? Who wrote these rules? And I love what Arnold Schwarzenegger says. He says, break the rules. Don't break the law.
Break the rules. So I don't have to confide to your box. If you don't understand, that's on you. I can do my own and that's what I would encourage people to do.
So I wanna pick this, I sort of play devil's advocate a little bit here because I want you to speak into it. Because I also see a side, you know, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs and sometimes what I see with them is they start switching the strategy up. They start switching the messaging up.
Before they can get enough. My whole thing is when people have multiple skill sets, I always say, okay, I think if it's a similar that you said, master one, get really good at marketing and selling that, and then move on, right? Because if you're trying to do that, if you're trying to add everything in when you're in a state of learning, you can't get momentum because you're always in a, you're learning all these things at the same time. Is that similar advice that you would give? are you, you know, like, when do you think it's the right time for somebody to add a different, something that would potentially add a huge learning curve to their life?
Cauveé - 40:49.966
I absolutely love this. I want to give everybody what I call your skill stack. Okay? Because I think that these would be what I would tell any student of the game, student of success to master as they're building whatever they're building. 85 % of people, men and women, are afraid of public speak.
All right. So mastery of public speaking. And if you're in the United States, toast masters and play organizations that can help you speak or hire a coach, right? Like that automatically puts you in the top 15 % being a great orator. Right. Right. Then we move into what is sales.
We don't teach sales, we call it relationship acquisition, acquiring relationships. But what is sales? The art of selling is really asking the right questions at the right time for the mutual benefit of all parties. That is really what sales is. Okay, now if you've mastered public speaking and you've mastered selling, selling applies to all industries. So that would be a good skill to put on your tool belt. And then when you look at marketing,
And what I would have done differently would be master media buying versus organic marketing. But marketing is the process of mass communication, which is really mass selling. You're selling an idea to the masses, right? Those three skills go very well together. And I would tell every single person you are at an advantage to learn.
I those skills you can take into anything. mean, it it kind of makes sense for you because if those are the three skills that you're mastering, then you can go into any business with that and gain traction. once you know how to sell, you know how to sell.
Cauveé - 42:28.013
Now. Now let's take it to the next level that you, like me, you put out some things into the market and you're navigating between the coach, the strategist, and the artist.
My narrative continue to change. It still does gradually and slightly. We're still having to become, what happens folks is you want to become a category king or a category queen of a domain and own that domain. And if you're John Smith or if you're Jane Smith and you've got a very common or a very, you know, traditional name, the, the call they already gives me what's called SEO search engine optimization. But if you've got a common name, you've got to figure out to be John.
You know, bulldozer, something Smith or whatever verb you do, whatever you do, right? Or Jane, you know, the ownership game, Smith, like whatever it is, you got to become a category king. So that's what we're really talking about here is the market is saturated with content. It is, you are in a sea of content. So in order to have a lifeboat in that sea.
You've got to become a category king or category queen. And I do say got to in this. Usually I don't tell people what they got to do, but in this case, I'm gonna stick to that. You've got to do that, right? To own that. Now in order to also be able to do that, you've got to do what we call when you're building a business plan, you've got to do great competitor analysis. Who are my competitors and do your market research? What do they offer? What do I offer? What makes me different, unique, and what is what's called my unique value proposition, your UVP, versus someone else?
Cauveé - 44:00.526
I know who our competitors are from an agency perspective. know who, and we don't look at it as true competition, but in the spirit of good competition, good natured competition, we know who they are as far as like a Prince E, EA. They're very similar to Calvay, but he doesn't do what I do, but he's a poet and there's some other people that can name job. But I'm just saying that to say, you've got to understand your market. So you really understand what within the market can I capture when it comes to capturing a place for you. So I say that.
All in saying, going back to your question, which was such a great question. The best way that I would tell somebody when you pivot and understand in college, people are always changing degrees because they don't know. That's just the nature of the game. And as we already said, you're continuing to evolve. Things are going to change. I didn't always say edutainer. I did have the inspiration engineer, but I didn't always have some of the other verbage that we use to really hone in on what it is. So I say that saying.
What I would tell you to do when you know you're ready, you're making money, okay? You've got your case studies. That's usually where you start. Usually like three to five, like case studies, right? Now you're scaling to the next 10 to 15, maybe a hundred customers, right? Now you're scaling that. How do I get more customers, serve better, know, give more value, boom. And now we got a hundred. At this point, you should be able to delegate. That's what leaders do. That's what Gary teaches you to do. How to delegate. Once it's time to delegate, we need systems.
As you're delegating through those systems, whether it's humans, AI or other, now once it systemizes and it works without you, and you don't even gotta be there, you don't even gotta be present, it works completely without you, now you're ready to move to your next thing. That's what I would tell people to do.
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And the last part that I would also add is be careful that what's having you move on is not some place of avoidance, right? Because sometimes what I see is like, this part stops being fun. This stop, this this part now gets hard. Let me go somewhere shiny. Let me go somewhere that I think that I perceive as more exciting or newer.
Gary Montalvo - 46:15.832
But it's like the grit and the struggle is gonna be there. you still have to, that is still part of the equation. You gotta bring that wherever you are. And you're not bypassing that by going into any of your different ventures. It's just for you, it's more of an expression of you, expression of your artistry. It's also something that I'm seeing.
I want to touch in there because that is a syndrome that I did have. You said imposter syndrome. I didn't have imposter syndrome, but I did have shiny object syndrome. As I started to learn about the next thing, and that's really what we're talking about, people would be like, ooh, and just jump ship, abandon ship on what was working. Now, there could be a time, I want to touch on this really quick. One of my mentors, used to do makeup.
And that was where she built her whole brand around makeup. Everything that she was known for was around makeup. And then she was like, I'm going to be a coach, like a business coach. I'm helping people with their makeup, but now makeup don't really apply to this new coaching business that I'm doing. And I asked her, said, did you keep it or did you let it go? She's like, I let it go. Now I said, you could actually relaunch it. And she was like, why or how? I was like, because like you were giving people confidence.
So that could just tie in. That's where it gets hard is figuring out between these things that don't technically align or they don't congruently align. It's like, where do I or how do I, what is the right strategy to then make it align? And that is what's difficult. But I said that saying, pivots are gonna be a part of it. Just make sure that you are self-aware and honest and transparent with yourself.
To know why you're making the transition you're making. Now I wanna throw one more thing that we haven't touched on yet that we talked about in the green room that I definitely wanna touch on. There's a big conversation right now with venture capitalists looking at startups and they're like, what are the best startups? And what the conversation is starting to become is the ones that have multiple monetization strategies, many different revenue types. right, duh, but they're now figuring that out.
Cauveé - 48:25.88
So I say that saying, having different things that you can leverage, having more assets, having multiple monetization strategies and things in place are all to the good. Just don't sacrifice yourself or sacrifice an opportunity or sacrifice what's already working because something shiny came along. right? And the one other thing I would tell people to do and just reach out to me, cause this is something that...
We specialize in, but giving you the right strategy so that as you're making that transition, like that would be like you, Gary, going from leadership and then saying, all right, I want to become a, you know, I want to own maybe a concrete business, right? Well, okay, now we're going to be like, all right, well, how does leadership apply to concrete? And we're going to go through all the ways and where there's some congruency, right? And you do this with, I don't know why I I'm looking at concrete, so I'll just throw out.
Let's look at the random. But whatever it is, you want to see like, where are the points where you can find something that is a hybrid? And if it doesn't exist, it just doesn't exist. Then we put it under a bucket of serial entrepreneurship. That's what we call that. So all I'm just saying is, just make sure that your I's are dotted and your T's are crossed before you make the leap into the next thing and make sure that you can use the money that you're bringing in for the one thing to funnel into the next venture.
Amen. Dude, so much value, so much, you know, just great, great insight. You put a gift together for listeners that it sounds just ridiculous. I'm so excited to share this with you guys. So, Kawei and team are putting together the ownership game bundle for you guys. And it's like this toolkit just filled with all of these...trainings and strategies and resources that are going to support you guys in your businesses. So, Kovey, why don't you give us a little bit about what you're putting in there for us?
Cauveé - 50:17.55
There's every, I know that's a hair thing. We've been talking about being a journalist and a specialist. This offer is a journalist offer, right? There's a lot of meat and value in this bundle from AI tools and AI prompts. And by the way, guys, this is a $500 kit that you'll get. You get a $500 coupon only if you come through the Ownership Game Podcast Network now, where you'll get a specialized coupon for you. You've got AI tools in there, how to monetize as a personal brand.
A sales course that you can have access to within the relationship acquisition, how to build your SEO, we call it your SEO checklist, making sure that you can be supported when it comes to marketing your business or your brand.
To selling your business or your brand. And because AI Gary gives us so much value as to ways that we can automate and workflows and things of that nature. I wanted to also include some prompts that people can have. So it's like, okay, if you're new to AI, there's some things that can give you some of your time back. And so yeah, it's a wealth of resources and that will be linked up in the show notes for you guys.
I love it. It's like the perfect giveaway from you because it's like a download of your brain dump of all the different ideas and strategies in your head. So I love it. Well, thank you so much. It has been a pleasure. I think you're a really interesting dude. And I think you're really insightful.
Yeah, you just, you know, I love that you have all this to teach from these hard earned lessons that you've earned along the way. So thank you for taking the time and I hope to see you back on the show soon.
Cauveé - 52:01.9
I appreciate it. It's been an honor and pleasure. appreciate all y'all guys. BOOST!
Brother. To be honest, I struggled with how to wrap up this episode. There were just so many lessons, so many different angles that I could have taken. But the threat that I kept coming back to was this. Carve is modeling what it looks like to live your life as a true artist. And I don't mean artists just in the creative sense, but in how he builds and how he thinks and how he designs his entire life and business to be a reflection of his deepest self-expression. Not just because it's a smart marketing branding strategy, but because he's building a vision that's big enough to hold all the different parts of who he is. And that, that's rare. Not only does it take innovation, it takes ownership because he's building against the grain.
It's harder to explain, it's harder to package, it's harder to market. But when you get it right, when the vision aligns with the vehicle, it's not just powerful, it's magnetic. It shifts industries, it moves cultures, and more importantly, it gives people permission to do the same. So if you're someone with lots of passions, lots of talent, and a vision that just doesn't fit inside a single lane, let this episode be your reminder.
You're not too much, you're just gonna have to build your own lane. But be sure to master one thing before you move on to the next, please. That is our episode for this week. I wanna give a massive thanks to Kaveh for showing us what it looks like to build from alignment and not approval. If you know a multi-hyphenated person who needs to hear this message, please share this episode with them so that they too can be inspired and know that they're not alone.
Gary Montalvo - 54:02.262
As always, keep expanding the vision, keep building like an artist, and keep playing the ownership game. We'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Ownership Game with your host, Gary Montalvo. Make sure to like and comment on your favorite podcast platform, as well as subscribe so that you never miss an episode.