Tom Maze Shares How He Integrates Daily Life Habits and Succeed as an Entrepreneur

Kevin Harrington
Hi, I’m Kevin Harrington, an original shark from the hit television show Shark Tank and you’re listening to the underdog podcast.

Pamela Bardhi
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the underdog podcast. Today, I have an incredible guest here with me, Tom, how are you, my friend?

Tom Maze
Awesome. Thanks so much for having me here. Pam. I’m excited.

Pamela Bardhi
Oh, man, it’s an honor to have you here. I love your chill and calm vibe. So I’m so excited to have you here today. I can’t wait to hear your story and all the amazing things that you’re up to. So thank you again, so much for being here, Tom.

Tom Maze
Yeah, absolutely, thanks so much. And just we’re talking about how entrepreneurs need to be able to thrive in chaos. And I found with so many friends or other associates, or people I connect with when stuff really gets haywire. Whether it’s a flood or an emergency situation, entrepreneurs are typically pretty level-headed. Because they’re like, oh, this happens in my business every month, every week, you know, this is not that bad. So kudos to you for having such a good mindset and positive attitude during a little bit of a stressful time as well.

Pamela Bardhi
Thank you so much, Tom. I just can’t wait to hear your story. Like, oh, man, I’m gonna start off with a question. It’s a bit loaded. But I think you’re gonna do well with it. What inspired you on your journey to where you are today, my friend,

Tom Maze
What inspired me was freedom, and really being able to pursue what I want when it when I wanted to, with who I wanted to. So growing up, I have always really analyzed my environment and looked at other people’s lives and situations. And you know, just thought about like, hey, well, what do I want from my life? And I looked at family members or friends or contacts that had financial independence, or they had an abundance of money. Then I looked at people who did not. I just thought, Okay, well, to me, some people have accomplished it, and some haven’t. That, to me looks like a decision, you know, it looks like a decision that I can make from my own life.

Sure, I’m going to have to learn a lot of skills, or I’m going to have to network. I’m going to have to grow myself to be able to accomplish it, it’s probably not easy. When I’m eight years old, 10 years old thinking this. But I just had this inherent belief that if I really wanted to try and pursue something I wouldn’t be able to. And I, of course, had to build on that belief as well.

But that’s really where it came from looking at other people and thinking, Man, if I could choose to have a life with financial independence. Where money was not a problem versus having money is a problem, of course, I’m going to choose where it’s not a problem. So I looked at that. And I said, this is something that I want to solve in my life, and for my family, and for my friends as well.

Pamela Bardhi
That’s amazing. That’s a lot of wisdom, my friend. What did you want to be when you grew up as a kid?

Tom Maze
That’s so funny because I was just talking to a friend two nights ago about this. And it started out with, I wanted to be a firefighter and a professional motocross rider. I volunteer in firefighting in high school in grade 11. And then I also have been dirt biking since I was like 11 years old. So I kind of did both of those. Then once I learned a little bit more about the world and started thinking more about money than I realized I wanted to be a business person. But that was once I actually learned a little bit about it.

Tom’s Biggest Inspiration Growing Up

Pamela Bardhi
I love that, oh, who was your biggest who? Or what was your biggest inspiration? Growing up?

Tom Maze
I would say that was my biggest inspiration would have been the money problem. And then who, you know, I think one thing I’ve always done exceptionally is realize that, hey, I’m not the number one guy. I’m never going to be the number one guy. Need to find people that have accomplished more than I have, or have a mindset that I don’t have. And whether that was a family member or an uncle. My dad helped me with any best interface, in the beginning, you know, learning that, and then it was really like audio books. As soon as I read probably two books, and realized how much two books could change my mindset. I was absolutely addicted to personal development.

So I read like 300 books within like two and a half, three years. I just started to crush them. And I found Tony Robbins, I found all of these amazing speakers and I started to watch YouTube videos, hours and hours on end, podcast hours on anything. I could get my hands on going to leadership seminars, etc, etc. And I was just like, man, like, it was kind of weird because I’m not sure if you I’m sure you’ve probably read a book or listened to a podcast, especially Tony Robbins. He would highlight these, like deficiencies in my own mindset. He would like say something. I’m like, oh my god, I do that. I’m like, I don’t want to do that anymore.

I want to work on that. I want to improve that whether it’s self-sabotage or lack of self-confidence. So I’d listen to two or three hours of his materials, read his book, and that’d be like, Wow, I actually improved my coffee. And then that was so addictive because I could then identify in my life or my mindset. I wanted to improve on and realized I could improve upon it. And then I was like, I can be Wolverine, I can make myself indestructible. Like, you know, I just wanted to be best I could be right? So yeah,

Pamela Bardhi
That’s amazing. Oh my goodness, 300 books, and two and a half. Oh my god, you gotta get so what were the top three?

Tom Maze
There’s so many. But I would say the first one that really like opened up my mind was thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Of course, a classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie classic. And the compound effect by Darren Hardy. And I would say those three because they were probably the first three out of 10 that I read. And the amount of impact that those had on my mindset was so significant like it was absolutely incredible. So yeah, I would recommend those three to anybody who’s getting started in business or personal development.

Pamela Bardhi
Hey, I love that, Tom. So what were some of the most important lessons that you learned from those books? Just as there’s a tonne of entrepreneurs listening or aspiring entrepreneurs listening. So I definitely want to give them some golden nuggets and inspire them to read the books.

Tom Maze
Yeah, and also mentioned bold after I comment on these two, these three books. It’s more of an advanced book, compound effect, really talks about my biggest takeaway. If you improve 1% a day, just whether it’s your physical fitness, whether it’s your mindset, whether it’s reading 10 pages a day. And that’s actually what I committed to was 10 pages a day, every day. And that was my bare minimum. Lots of times are obviously read a heck of a lot more than that.

But I just started building that habit in that routine. And the power of habit and compound effect 1% better every day. How to Win Friends and Influence People just communication skills on how to build relationships with people. And how valuable that is a skill as well as sales. Then the third one with thinking Grow Rich was how much you know your mindset plays into who you want to become and what you want to accomplish.

Pamela Bardhi
I love that I haven’t read Dale Carnegie’s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, I should probably check that one out.

Tom Maze
It’s yeah, I totally recommend it. I think it’s one of the top 10 sold personal development books of all time thinking Grow Rich is number one, I believe. Yes. And then bold by Peter diamond is phenomenal. He’s got another book abundance as well. But bold really taught me that you need to make very bold decisions. And you need to really just take that leap of faith. You can build multiple projects at the same time. So many books, and so many mentors, or coaches really teach you to just focus on one thing. But you really need to look at your own personality. Your lifelong goals, what you want to accomplish with your life, the resources that you have available to you. Then you can work on multiple projects at the same time.

You can have multiple successes at the same time. And he talks a lot about innovation, looking to the future. Creating a business that will thrive not just today and next year and two years from now. But what that industry going to look like five years, 10 years from now. So that really opened up my eyes as well.

Pamela Bardhi
That’s incredible. My goodness, you did a tonne of soul-searching?

Tom Maze
Absolutely.

Pamela Bardhi
And how did you actually make these habits? So after you learn them, because you know, like, we get super inspired by something. And then all of a sudden, we’re like, yeah, we want to do it. Like, how did you then integrate it? I always love learning this, like one of the hacks of your integration of like changing these mindsets and different things that you did. Because everyone’s different in how they’ve adjusted based on what they learned.

Tom Maze
Totally. So the first step for me was realizing that I could and I’ve got to give huge credit to Caleb Miller, who kicked my ass when I wanted to go to the gym. And I didn’t want to go to the gym, and he would pick me up every like three times, four times a week and I’d go to the gym, I’d workout. And I hated it for the first three months. But then again, I got addicted. When I saw the results, I saw three months of work and I thought whoa like I actually look a little bit different. This is crazy.

So then I started to put in the work and I had the belief so I worked on the belief and then that routine I translated into like every aspect of my life. So when I was starting to look at personal development. I thought okay, well I don’t need to be perfect, you know, just do it three times a week, just do it four times a week. Build that habit 10 minutes a day, or 10 pages a day for reading. It was just a small step. You know, it was really just a huge series of small steps and then finding the enjoyment within that and then compounding on that.

Pamela Bardhi
Right. Absolutely. I love that. Oh, you had a cheerleader in your life right that just like pushed you and push you and push you pick you up made you go to the gym. And then you saw it and then you know once you see the results you just can’t go back because you’re just like you become addicted to success. And I think that that’s a real thing. People have asked me, can you just like an addictive overachiever? Apparently, I’m like, Yeah, I think because once you start winning you don’t stop right because the feeling of winning feels so good. Like why would you right Yeah, so I think the same thing for you?

Tom Maze
Absolutely. You find the fun and the joy in it. And then you never want to go back. Like I’ll never, ever since I started going to the gym when I was 16. The longest break I’ve ever taken was a month, you know, and it was because of an injury. But like, it’s not because I need to go to the gym. It’s because I’d love to go to the gym. I don’t read books, because I have to read a book. It’s because I love reading books, It’s because I want to and you know, in the beginning, you don’t there’s so many things where you need to build that habit. But then once you’ve realized that it’s worthwhile for your life. You start looking at all the positive aspects of how it’s affecting you, and where are you going, then, you know, I use that as fuel.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. I love that. So walk me through your career journey from kind of like start to finish would you go to high school and kind of rock and roll from there?

Tom Maze
Awesome. Sounds good. I’ll do a quick high-level overview then you can dive into whatever you want. So I always tell everybody, my first entrepreneurial journey was with selling fireworks in elementary school in high school. So I hired my brother to go and pick them up and I would sell them and I started making anywhere from like 500 to $2,000 per Halloween. When I was in like grade eight grade nine grade in grade seven was the first year that I did it. And then I started buying and selling snowmobiles, dirt bikes, skateboards, you know, you pretty much name it, I bought it and sold it in high school.

So that was a lot of fun. And then I wanted to start working as soon as I could. At 14 years old, I was carrying wood in the lumber mill. I went to high school at Walnut Grove Secondary School here in Walnut Grove, Langley. I would longboard to the mill after high school and got a workout in while I was getting paid to do it carrying wood. And then I wanted to figure out a really good fallback plan that I knew I wanted to go in business. But I was in high school in grade 10, I had no idea what I wanted to do, whether there’s life insurance, finance, business.

For some reason, I intuitively knew that I didn’t want to go to university or college for business because I just didn’t really see that being the option. I wanted to actually do it. And I started a few different businesses. But so with that being said, I looked at construction and I started working in construction. I looked at electrical I got did electrical studies, I got my red seal electrical done by 20 or 21 years old. Because I started when I was in grade 11, which I think is 16. Started doing a lot of affiliate marketing because I loved sales, people saw how business-minded I was.

So they pulled me into their companies to help them sell stuff that was doing affiliate marketing in the evenings and weekends outside of construction till about 21. And then built teams of about 20 to one I guess my largest team was probably about 45 people. So I did that. Then 22 started my own electrical contracting company. And started learning a lot more about finance even though I had been investing a lot during that time period since 1718 years old. I know you can’t legally invest at that point.
But my dad I used his account the time. And then at 23, I co-founded my first investment fund called Squadra capital. And then after that raised capital for that fun commodity and currency trading fund and built a team of people for that. Then network with a lot of high net worth entities and individuals, family offices, VCs, etc, etc. Then co-founded a consulting firm to help companies raise money help with patent applications help with international expansion sales, and it’s called Altezza capital.

And then I started a third company called NXT digital which is a web three-focused and NFT company focused on opportunities in that space. We helped artists with listing their artwork as NF TS we have a virtual art gallery being built out. And then outside of that I was doing consulting and coaching work for entrepreneurs as well as companies. I brought together about 11 consultants and started a Lita international consultants, where we assist with everything.

We’ve got leadership experts, artificial intelligence experts. I’m on the finance side of things in fundraising, We’ve got into PhDs and international business. we’ve got social media experts, we’ve got health experts. And I saw that we were all just doing the work independently and I said, Hey, why don’t we all come together. And start an organization and collaborate and assist companies with not just finance not just leadership, but let’s do you know a combined offering. So those are the four main companies at the moment.

Pamela Bardhi
That’s amazing. No big deal. Just you know, the big four, and that’s, that’s amazing. You’re literally an entrepreneur by trade. Straight up like you just like it’s in your blood. You live breathe it and I can tell you’re nowhere close to being done.

Tom Maze
Yeah, we’re just getting warmed up. We’re just getting warmed up. There’s still so much to learn and growing so much every day. I’m so grateful for everything and yeah, it’s really getting excited. I’ve never been so much so excited in my life I’m just So excited for the future, it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

Pamela Bardhi
That’s so incredible. I mean, I just, love what you’ve built. And I want to reel back and really talk about it quite a bit because I just think it’s absolutely fascinating. So I mean, the companies that you started when you were about 21 years old, and you scaled them to you were saying about 50 40 50 per team.

Tom Maze
Yeah, yeah. So actually, earlier than that, I started at 17 18 19. I started like, 17 18 19, I was very, very shy, I had an extremely hard time talking to people. I’d overcome massive limiting beliefs and develop my communication skills. So I really just worked on myself from 16 to about 19. And then I started getting some traction had a team of about 11 people at that point. Then at 21, worked with another company and had a team of about 35. And then at 22. It was about Yeah, 50 people at that time.

Pamela Bardhi
That’s insane. So how did you overcome those limiting beliefs for yourself? Because I was just going to ask, you know, what’s been some of like, your biggest challenges is. Obviously, nothing comes without, you know, struggle, especially when it comes to business. Right? So what were some of the biggest challenges? And how did you overcome them?

Tom Maze
Totally. And I love to highlight this one as much as possible, because I think this is a real problem for a lot of people. It’s a real limiting belief for a lot of people and mine was communicating with people. It was so hard, and I would go into a sales meeting for affiliate marketing company. I would sit in the parking lot, like 30 minutes early at a coffee shop. And I would be like, in a cold sweat, I would be so nervous to talk to this person about what I wanted to sell them or potentially recruit them to come and work with us.

And I was just like, terrified, and I call my coach or my mentor at the time, who had more experience than I did. And I would just be stressing his thing so hard. He’d be like, Tom, don’t worry, you’ve got this, you got this, like, just go in there. Like, who cares if it’s good or bad, just go in there has a conversation. Even if it’s 15 minutes, just go and do it. That was the pain I had to go through. Like, for so many times, the first 10 meetings were awful, I was in cold sweats, I was so nervous, I felt sick.

And I just did and I was like, Hey, I’m just gonna do it. Even if it’s not good. It’s fine, you know, go in there instead of in 45 minutes, 20 minutes, because I was so nervous. Just through doing you know, it’s through action is how I overcame a lot of those limiting beliefs. I would just push through it, I would reach out to people who are good at it. And I would ask him questions, and I would really lean on them for support and encouragement.

Hope that they could give me some kind of words of advice that would encourage me to go and do it. And then I just made the commitment of okay, I’m going to just do it. Until it became more natural and took me probably like 40-50 meetings. Before I was actually really comfortable and confident with my sales abilities, right. And then the next hurdle was public speaking, and I hate public speaking. So what do I do I go to Toastmasters and force myself to do so yeah,

Pamela Bardhi
I love that I love how you forced yourself to do it easing into fear. You take it like little by little by little you speak in front of five people then 10 people then, you know, meaning you scale it up. Because you know, the thought of speaking in front of 100 people could terrify anybody, right. But if you start to do it little by little, then all of a sudden, it’s not so scary at the end of the day. That’s incredible.

Tom Maze
Exactly just like the compound effect with that 1% a day, right? You can do a 115 minute sales meeting. Or I even just didn’t even start with that it was just a conversation. Just go in there and talk with, like, that’s how nervous I was. It was crazy, right? And it was just 1% 1% 1%. And now I do presentations to boards of companies and stuff like that, right? And I could never even imagine doing that, you know, talking with CEOs talking on podcasts, etc, etc.

So, yeah, just if I can give one word of encouragement to the listeners would be like. Whatever you don’t want to do, whatever you know, that’s holding you back from progressing. Just look at it in bite sized pieces, and just try to step into it slowly. Don’t try to step on a stage with 10,000 people. Just practice doing a toast at your friend’s dinner or do a toast at a family get together, whatever it is right? Just ask people to do it step by step.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Sam, for that. And I mean, throughout you started so young. Like building these companies out and like you’ve built up to a team of 40-50. And now you’re doing all these presentations worldwide and all these things. What are some of your biggest tips to success and how you made that happen? Because there’s entrepreneurs that have a really hard time with scaling, myself included. It always feels like there’s like these limitations on it. So how do you how did you find the secret sauce for scaling up and building out massive teams the way that you have,

Tom Maze
I would say learn by doing and doing it step by step and then you need to have the discipline as well. So work on that. And then the second one would be I’ve always been really great at like I mentioned earlier, when I need help, I’m not afraid to ask for help. You know, I’ll reach out to somebody that’s got a company that’s larger than I have 100 or 200 people. Or they’ve done way larger public speaking events, and I asked them for help. I’ve had many different coaches and mentors. I’ve had many that I pay for that I don’t pay for. I’ve spent over 100,000 on different coaches and whatnot.

And that’s been absolutely huge for me. Then I also use comparison to my advantage opposed to my disadvantage. So with scaling, I was just coaching a landscaping company about this. And there’s like, Oh, I’ve got,seven guys, and I can’t scale because I need to be there. I’m like, let’s do a comparison here. Let’s look at somebody like Richard Branson, who has his name attached to like over 450 companies. Jeff Bezos, or Bill Gates, and they’ve got like 70,000 80,000 employees and Amazon or maybe it’s 100,000, or something like that.

But anyways, like with that, it’s like, how could you ever get anywhere close? Like, what are they doing so differently, that you’re stuck at seven? And they’ve got 70,000 80,000? And it’s the same thing with me as I look at my four businesses, and I’m like, Oh, I’m getting so stressed. It’s like this, that the other thing, this is wrong, I can’t scale I can’t scale. It’s like, well, how can Tony Robbins have over 100 companies, you know what I mean? So like, when I think about that, I realise that the only issue is the way that I’m choosing to think about it. The way that I’m thinking about it, the way that I’m delegating the way that I’m creating systems, the way that I’m partnering with people.

Because I can’t be the bottleneck of this, I can’t just not go to work, it’s never going to scale. And it’s always a problem being the bottleneck, whether it’s 10 people or 100 people. You’ll always have a bottleneck at a certain point, and it’s all based around your limiting beliefs. So for me, it’s having somebody that I can talk to that’s surpassed all of this in my current business coaches. You know, manage 30,000 employees plus. So with that, day in my life is a walk in the park for him like, it’s like, the easiest day ever.

So having that mindset that I can pull on is absolutely crucial. I really encourage people to have somebody that they can have as a sounding board. That they can ask questions of whether you pay for them or you don’t because it’s a friend or, or somebody like that. So I would say learn by doing discipline, having people that you can bounce ideas off of and work on your mindset. and be the biggest ones and then creating systems, delegating work, etc.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. And that’s, I think, the hardest part, right? Like, what are the logistics and like stepping outside of your business? Because especially small business owners, they’re often working in their business, and they can’t stop themselves. So it’s like, how do we get them to focus? And I think it’s just systems or delegation, like, step by step right of things that you should not be doing, right. That’s what I tell every entrepreneur, I’m like, listen, for me, one of my biggest things was operations. There was paperwork and things that I absolutely hated.

So the first thing I did, I hired somebody from operations. And then I’m like marketing, I don’t want to be posting on social media, I don’t want to be doing this stuff. I hired a social media person. It’s like small steps that you scale out. And then you see what’s necessary from there. I mean, it’s been a struggle for me, because I was always like, for a longest time, I can do everything. You know, so it was the last few years that I was able to take it and kind of like keep growing. But it’s tough. Especially when it’s a startup, you’re like, Oh, I got I’m just trying to grasp this myself first. Then you know what I do, then you have a team alongside of you building up the team, that’s like a whole nother thing.

So it takes some real strategic vision and like systems and processes. And then like figuring out the delegation and kind of like, not overspending on employees and stuff like that, too. Because that was like, one thing, don’t hire so much at once that you get overwhelmed to kind of do it. One step at a time, because it can make you lose yourself. So I always love hearing the journey with that, because it’s, every business is different. For sure, there’s some that are more sales reps and things like that. But like, for me, it was like, I have so many different governances. Like, how do I scale to where I was like, Oh, nobody who are better than me. And I’m just like, Oh, God, learn the lesson like five, six years ago, you know, that when I’m burned out and overwhelmed, right?

Tom Maze
Totally. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs are perfectionists. So a lot of the time to write it needs to be done their way. And it needs to be done like this. And like that. It’s hard to let go of that sometimes, you know, I did the same thing. You know, I was wanting to write every document, I wanted to be involved in everything all of the time.

And then I started to like to do tests where I’m like, I just don’t want to be involved in all and it actually got done better. I was like, what, like when I’m not involved, these guys do better work than when I am involved in like, perfect. This is phenomenal. So just like letting go of that perfection mindset. You need to be able to do everything and it needs to be done the perfect way. And it’s like, you know, it’s just not scalable at all. 100%

Pamela Bardhi
And then also like listening to them like same thing. Yeah, like what you just said like they did it better. Like literally I listened to the feedback my team gets and I’m like, That’s genius. Like i It makes me realise how much I don’t know, you know, but you can’t see certain things you can’t step outside of it sometimes. So your employees are, you know, it’s your team. It’s your family. So I love that. I love that. And I mean, so you’ve now built so alpha is really a fundraising capital investment fund. Correct?

Tom Maze
Primarily more on assisting companies with raising capital, as well as consulting international sales consulting. international growth. Yeah.

Pamela Bardhi
That’s incredible. Well, that’s one of the things that you know, everyone struggles with is where do I find the money? And you have the answers my friend. So what are some tips? What are some tips that in your experience and things that you’ve seen different scenarios. Or anything that you think would be helpful to anybody, anybody listening?

Tom Maze
There’s so much one that I would start off with, which is kind of targeting more of the starting entrepreneurs is your idea? There’s so many different aspects, I can go with this. But like a lot of people they have, you have to realise that venture capitalists investors see 10-20 projects a week minimum, right. So what you need to create a case for is like how you’re making a disruption in the market. Like, how are you unique, and then the experience of the team, what you’re bringing to the table?

And I’ve been pitched so many like NFT exchanges, or cryptocurrency exchanges, like, well, there’s already so many of them. Why would we invest in that? What are you doing different? I mean, there’s binance, there’s cracking, there’s massive exchanges already. So when you’re coming up with an idea, try to make it disruptive. How is it making the industry better, or how is it a win-win situation. This person is going to want to purchase from you for this reason, because it’s going to help them. But then these people are also going to want to purchase from you for this reason, as well.

So the idea is obviously really important. Your founding team needs to be really, really solid. Make a very clear plan on how you’re actually going to create that MVP how it’s going to be profitable. If you can actually put cases in place where you’re already making money that is huge. Generally, the parameters that we look for, they’ve already raised three to 4 million. So they have already proven to be successful. And then they’re making about 600,000 or more per revenue in year. They’ve already got an MVP and a revenue generating. And then also realise that you’re gonna have to go through the numbers. A lot of people, they think that, hey, I’m gonna go and I’m gonna pitch 10 or 20, VCs and investment funds, and then I’m gonna get my capital.

And it’s not, it’s not like that, you know, get ready to do 100 200 300. I think Uber was actually a really great example of that. Airbnb, I think they pitched like about 130 Each before they got their capital investment. If an idea like that, if a company like that needs to pitch that much, right, like, so you’ve got to really take that into consideration. And yeah, just pitch, pitch, pitch, go through the numbers as much as possible, and take the feedback that you get really, really seriously.

Pamela Bardhi
That’s incredible. So you said something super important. Even Uber and Airbnb had to pitch 130 times before they got their capital. So sometimes we get frustrated right away. Who’s like, Hey, why isn’t my you know what I mean? Like, why isn’t this bank like, lending me the money to do this? And this and this, it just, it’s not a fit, go somewhere else. Right? Like, it doesn’t mean that your idea sucks. It means you have to just keep going, right? Yes, everybody’s different. And everybody’s capital raises and everything that they invest in, like they have different criteria everywhere.

Every investor has different things that they look for. If I’m not mistaken. Yeah. And so they do certain things. But at the end of the day, I think, and this is my own take on this. But like, if your business is providing a solution, you need to be able to clearly outline how that solution is happening. I feel like sometimes we get so overburdened with these massive pitch decks and all these things. And it’s I don’t forget the simple logistics of like, what it is that you do and how you make money.

Like, how are you serving the community, right? Because sometimes, like, I remember looking back on like my college projects. And things that we would have to pitch like for advanced investors. We had to create VC decks and stuff, and I’m like, wow, I overcomplicated this so much. And then I look at it now I’m like, Oh, it’s just this, this, this, this, this, you know, and then add in all the data. At home, we can get wrapped up in that sometimes.

Tom Maze
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. And, like, what I’ve recommended with some people is they just put a basic pitch deck together. If it’s a new idea, and then they go, and they start getting feedback right away. And you’ll generally if you’re open to the feedback and the criticism, you’re not emotionally attached to this idea, and it’s your baby. Which is not a good idea when your business is your baby. But like if you pitch it 10 times or 15 or 20 times and it’s you’re getting horrible feedback. Maybe you want to change the idea, maybe you want to adjust to something else. If you’re getting decent progress, then you can move forward with that.

And like you said, having a clear plan of action I consult for a resort project in the US are building a location in Costa Rica. And the manufacturing facility in Denver. Colorado. When I had a conversation with the CEO, and I was considering helping her with her capital raise, she’s like, okay, great. So I signed all the NDAs. I looked through and she shares a data room with me, that was the largest data room I’ve ever seen in my life. Like it was so detailed on like, where they’re getting the materials from, where they’re building. Here’s, like, ello eyes with potential properties. Like it was insane.

She spent like a year and a half building this out. And I was like, Okay, I’m gonna take you to my groups. Because I had such a high level of confidence in her ability. And her plan and her team and the contracting companies that were willing to backup and help build the projects. I took her to some of my largest companies, and it’s doing phenomenally well. But because she had such a great plan of action, I was like, This is awesome, awesome, awesome. credibility. So yeah, absolutely. Like you said,

Pamela Bardhi
that’s amazing. Oh, my goodness. I love that.So we’ll just send everybody your way. And we’ll handle it that way. Sounds good. Tom?

Tom Maze
Yeah, it is really, it’s a hard dynamic to talk about, because there’s so many ideas where people have them. And it’s like, you shouldn’t spend a lot of time on this idea. And then you’ve got the ideas where it’s like, okay, this is a good idea, just go through the numbers. But like, identifying those two differences is quite difficult. It’s like, should I spend a year putting time and effort into developing this idea? Or am I wasting my time with this idea.

So you really need to balance it of like, have an idea, figure out if it’s going to work. You need to talk to whoever you need to talk to whether it’s VCs or friends or family or different companies. Really see if this is going to work, and then put the time into building it. But unfortunately, you see a lot of people that they’ll put a year, two years, three years into not a good idea.

Pamela Bardhi
Yeah, absolutely. Because I mean, some of the things sound really amazing when you talk about it and stuff. But then when you lay it out pen to paper, the beauty lies in the execution of it. And idea can sound as brilliant as you want it to. But then when it gets to the execution and looking at the actual numbers. You’re like, oh, okay, I was like, did logistics of running a business. Like there’s, you got to think about things from a realistic point of view. If you are here and your manufacturer is 4000 miles away, what happens if there’s a delay.

And then you can’t get it to your customers, you get to lose like, it’s like a whole whirlwind of stuff. So yeah, no, I appreciate those tips. Anybody who’s listening, you know, a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs.A lot of people looking to do capital raise, and it’s like, how do you do that? So that’s amazing. And you mentioned that you created a group with consultants that you’re all in different spheres. But you kind of combined together as one unit, which I think is so powerful. As I always say this further, faster together, you could be superhuman by yourself. But the minute that you’re surrounded with others, it’s like everything just goes like 100 fold. I think that that’s amazing. That’s amazing. So what’s going on in your world, Tom, and like the next six to 12 months, like what’s happening fill me in

Tom Maze
right now. Because I have grown at the pace that I have over the past like two or three years. And I’ve got this problem where I keep coming up with ideas. And then I start launching new companies. I’m trying to dial that in a little bit. Because I’ve got another like two or three that are in the background of what I’m doing with these four that I don’t talk much about. But yeah, right now I’m really just working on myself actually developing my mindset further growing further skills. Really investing into consultants and coaches who can help me with that. I really changed the amount that I’ve worked in my businesses to reducing it.

So that I can have more time to work on myself and reflect and think about, like, how can I delegate more? How can I create better systems? How can I really have a scalable mindset. So I’m really focused on that with the companies that I have right now. Really want to continue working with those and scaling those larger few other projects in the background. I’m excited to launch those in the next year or two. And yeah, just really have a lot of fun and enjoy life and not just grind all day, every day. Like so many people talk about, like, I was just talking with a friend about this.

Until they hired this business coach, he’s 62. And he’s done everything you can imagine, you know, he’s made all the amounts of money that you wish you could make. And then everything and he’s like Tom, like, you don’t want to just get in this mindset of grind, grind, grind. Because you’re gonna grind through your 20s you’re gonna grind through your 30s you’re gonna grind through your 40s. That’s exactly what he did. He’s like, the trick is to really enjoy and have fun while you’re pursuing what you want to pursue.

And, you know, my definition of success is pursuing worthwhile destinations on the most injured enjoyable journey as possible with the greatest company as possible. So that’s what I’ve been really trying to focus on lately. It’s like I’ve have these audacious goals that I want to accomplish. But I used to only want to be there and I’m going to hate my life while I worked on getting there. Like there’s literally like how I thought pretty much because that’s how I thought I had to be successful. But now it’s like, well, I want to work with people that I have a tonne of fun with.

I want to enjoy this Journey and really enjoy what I’m doing on a daily basis. So, over the past seven months this mindset shift has been absolutely huge. And I want to be able to work four to eight hours a day and have a normal life. Where I can still hang out with friends or go travelling or enjoy this and enjoy that. And I’m lucky that I absolutely love my business life. So a lot of the time, it doesn’t feel like work. Like, this doesn’t feel like work like, this is awesome. Having a chat with my good friend, Pam, this is wonderful, right?

So I would say over the next year, two years, three years is scale, the company’s continued to work on myself and my mindset, create more Win Win situations. So that you know, either I’m partnering up with a business or creating a new business, it’s beneficial for all parties involved. Everybody’s happy, everyone’s winning together, and just really focus on building, communities of people within companies that enjoy the process. And we all win together and scale from there.

Pamela Bardhi
I love that, Tom. And now I have a question for you. Since now, you talked about mindset, and like, you’re really focused on enjoying. And all the things what was your older self, tell your younger self based on what you know, now,

Tom Maze
oh, that’s a good one I’m older self would tell my younger self now would be really focused on enjoying the process more. I would also tell myself that you made your own you are you are pursuing freedom so much that you created your own prison. I started to schedule my days and 15 minute increments from when I woke up to when I was going to sleep when I was gonna go asleep. So like, I was reading at this 15 minute interval, then I was gonna have lunch for these 30 minutes, I was gonna go to the gym for an hour, 15 minutes. And I was going to drive to this meeting for 45 minutes.

And in between that meeting, I was going to make these two phone calls while I was going to the other meeting, and I was pursuing freedom. And I have like a great amount of discipline, but I created my own prison. I was totally imprisoned to my own mindset. I scheduled like three hours of fun every week, whether that was that was including time with my friends and family. So like, if I saw my brother for one hour or saw my mom for one hour, or whatever it was.

And thank God, I had a transformation coach that totally helped me realise that I was creating this and I was able to change after two years. But I would really tell myself to like spend some time thinking about truly what do I want to accomplish? How do I want to accomplish it? And then how can I have the most fun and enjoyment while I’m accomplishing those things and have more grace with yourself as well. I was extremely and I still am. But I’m working on like extremely hard on myself with not being far enough along. With not accomplishing more with you know, this kind of stuff.

My business coach just told me two weeks ago, he’s like, Tom, you haven’t given yourself a pat on the back since you were 13 years old. And I’m like, that’s totally true. So yeah, yeah, I would really be considering a lot of those things. But life is a journey. It’s not a destination and beating yourself up the whole time while you’re on that journey is really not beneficial for you or others around you as well. That energy gets tossed on to people around you. And being a person of joy and happiness is way more productive. Being a person of like discipline and misery and hustle culture and just, you know, doing all that kind of stuff. So

Pamela Bardhi
I love that Tom. It resonates so much with me because I’m same exact brain waves as you. I’ve always been like super hard on myself on the things and like people look at you and they’re like, oh my god, like all the things you’ve accomplished. This is crazy. That’s insane. Like, holy crap. And meanwhile, you’re here like, I don’t even feel like I’m there yet. Yeah. So I totally get that I’m trying to be nicer with myself and really give myself grace. Like remember, like that pat on the back, like, Hey, listen, look at your life. How it was 10 years ago and compare it to now, you know, there’s been a huge amount of growth there. And I too, am also learning to enjoy the process.

Even though the perfectionist in me is always like, over because you know, at the end of the day, it’s like, it’s the memories we create in this life. And it’s like, if we’re constantly thinking in the future, we can enjoy the present. So that’s the really hard part about being an entrepreneur. Is we’re always thinking over here, but we got to remember that be down here to to enjoy life. Because then it’s like, what are you really working for?

Like, I know, people who are multi multi millionaires and even billionaires and they get to a point where they’re like. Pam, I had to sacrifice my health or my marriage or my relationship or something, they sacrifice something to get there. And then they regret it when they get there. And then it’s like, Well, what was it really all for them? Such a huge lesson for anyone who’s listening. It’s like listen, works, never gonna stop business is never gonna stop. You need to set yourself back and give you that grace period, for sure.

Tom Maze
Yeah. And that was just long lines of what you’re saying is. That’s what the one of the realisations I had was. I was thinking about like, Man, how could a billionaire be miserable? And then I’m like, I saw this thought pattern in my own life as to you know, okay, I made 30 bucks an hour. Then it was 50 bucks an hour, then it was 100 bucks an hour, and then it was, you know, 100k a year, then it’s 200k a year. Then it’s like, wow, like am I still going to have this mindset of 10 million now I need 25. Now I need 50. Now I need 200. Like, it’s really unlike an addictive kind of mindset that you need to be able to break.

Because you can be worth two, three $4 billion, and you’re not happy that you’re not worth $10 billion. Like, when are you ever gonna start to enjoy your life and, and be happy. And then you say you’re worth a billion dollars. And then there’s a huge financial crash, and now you’re worth 500 million and people will commit suicide over that. Like, they’re still worth $500 million, but they’ll commit suicide. Like, mental health is such such a huge issue and something that probably is should be talked more about in the entrepreneurial world. But yeah, that is something that, you know, I really, really want to focus on. I’m super grateful for my coach that he drills that into me all the time about hey, you know, this happens that happens. But you know, it’s not the end of the world, right? So

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely, Tom, you’re absolutely amazing. My goodness, I can’t wait to like follow you on your journey. And see how you continue to elevate and your companies and all the things it was such an honour to have you here today, my friend. That you gotta let everyone know where to find you and your awesomeness and your company’s everything.

Tom Maze
You’re gonna find me on the underdog podcast with Pam. Absolutely love your podcasts. Thanks so much for having me here. It’s always fun. Having great conversations with you. Where people can find me is the best location is just tommaze.com. With that, I’ll have links to all of my companies so you can explore those and research more if you want. And then social media. You can find me just Tom Maze, or go to my Tommy’s website and you’ll have the links to there as well.

Pamela Bardhi
Amazing, Tom, thank you again so much for being here today. It was truly an honour. Thank you, my friend.

Tom Maze
Awesome. No, thank you. pleasure was mine.

Pamela Bardhi
So that’s it for today’s episode of underdog. catch us next week, always dropping on Thursdays. And remember, if you’re interested in real estate. Or want to learn how to create more money and magic in your life. Check out meet with pamela.com and let’s chat. Sending you so so much love.