JV Crum III is by Inc Magazine as one of the Top Business Podcasts to listen to in 2017, is Host of Conscious Millionaire, a Podcast and Nationally-Syndicated Radio Show heard by over 10 Million listeners in 186 countries. He is a speaker, coach, best-selling author, Huffington Post Columnist and Founder of ConsciousMillionaire.com and the First Million Academy. His global company provides coaching and masterminds for both small and mid-sized businesses that want to make a big impact and big profits. He is also featured in the upcoming movie, RiseUP, and holds graduate degrees in three areas: business, law and psychology.
Show Notes:
If you had to eat a worm, how would you cook it?
I would saute it in butter with some garlic and rosemary.
What inspired you to write “Conscious Millionaire”?
I was looking for about 3 years going camping, etc. and asking “why am I on the planet and how can I take the talents that I have and turn to skills and put them to use and to make this a better world to help other people? I was skiing for the winter. I picked up a brochure (from the cabin), looked down and saw the word ‘conscious’ and in my forehead I saw ‘conscious millionaire’. I got a little tingling in my spine and I said ‘that’s it! That’s what I’ve been looking for. So the inspiration for the book – having an aspiration to teach people a path to make their first million that was spiritual, and socially conscious that would fulfill them.
I got there at 25 with the Mercedes and the four-story home and it was great but then I felt empty as I had not gotten the fulfillment and meaning part of it all. So I put all these together so that when you build your first million you get there and you’re fulfilled and feel like you’re doing something that matters.
What does it mean to be conscious? – outside of being alive
There are 3 different ways we can look at conscious.
- Awareness, which includes, “what’s the best client for me to work with? What’s their top problems? What’s the solution that I can best provide them? How does this mechanics actually work? How do I market?
- Visionary, think of Steve Jobs where he connected to a bigger vision of what we all do in terms of how we communicate with one another, and there comes the iPhones. That’s the visionary leader of connecting to a better idea about the world might be.
- Being socially conscious – caring about your stakeholders, everybody that works with you, that you’re being fair in your dealings with other people. How do I uplift my client? Create a better world – create a change in my clients.
Why are you so passionate to help 6-Figure service-businesses and coaches reach their First Million?
I think it’s because I grew up in a family where there are about 200 people in a little town. Nobody had any money. My parents were very strict and conservative and they didn’t want to be embarrassed in the grocery store so I was taught not to ask for the candy bar. We actually didn’t have that kind of money. At 5 I said, I don’t think this is how I want to live and I said, ‘what’s the answer?’ Why don’t mommy and daddy don’t have any money and I said oh, I’ll grow up and be a millionaire.
At 25 I got there. I can tell you that making that first million is game changer, I can have a beautiful home, I can drive a Mercedes, I can go to Europe on vacation. I didn’t have to worry about the things my parent had to worry about and I can focus on living my life the way that I wanted; making a bigger contribution. That first million is a game changer for people; they can send their kids to college; they don’t have to worry about anything. All those things come together for them. I know how important those things are in a person’s journey and I want to help them get there.
Why do some entrepreneurs reach their First Million and continue to thrive while so many fail?
That’s a great question, that’s why I wrote a whole chapter in my book on financial freedom. The skills that it take to get to that first million are actually quite different than the skills it take to sustain it and continue growing. Often times people don’t develop those skills so they get to that place but they don’t have good spending/saving/investment habits. They’re not focused on the things that will allow them to then take it and turn it into a lifetime prosperity. That’s a different type of skill.
How can a 7-Figure business quickly double revenues and profits?
It’s all about scaling. I have a 5-step process and the 5th step is really how you’re going to double/triple/10 times your business and it all comes down to having the right systems in place and knowing where your high profit/revenue is coming from so you can focus on that and scale it quickly. Once you have your systems working, if you know how to bring a prospect in and you have a system to take them through the steps to make that first sale and you have that automated, now it’s just a matter of more of the right traffic coming through and you can double your business quickly.
What is a Big Impact Vision?
One that comes from within you. There are 3 elements. The big picture is the core of the business and it’s where a lot of entrepreneurs fail to get that aspiration so that they really move forward and do something big. At the early stages a lot of businesses focus on how do I put money in the bank. This is critical but if that’s your whole focus for building a business, it’s very difficult to build a great business that way because that’s not the core of a great business.
Every great business starts off with a core vision of something bigger that has nothing in and of itself to do with putting money in the bank. It’s about creating a particular experience and transformation for the client. When you start talking about your big impact vision you may also be impacting the world, you may be solving a worldwide problem such as providing drinking water. That’s a big impact vision.
You start off by asking what is something you are passionate about. There are 3 clues to this:
- You really become one with it. When you do that activity, you lose track of time, you think an half hour passed and it was 4 hours.
- You have a state change. I call that state immense joy, you may have a different name for it. You probably have people say after you’ve been doing this activity, ‘wow! you look different’ and you may look different – the blood flow throw your vein differently.
- You’ll probably do this activity and help people for free. That’s the thing, you’ve got to be doing something you love so much that you’ll do it for free.
The great thing is because you’re so talented at it, this is what you can charge the highest rates for because you get the highest transformation and create the highest value.
The second part is purpose – I spend a long time figuring it out because I didn’t have a process but once I discovered it, and started working with a lot of clients, it never take me more than 2 or 3 sessions to get them to a deep purpose. Your purpose is like a gold coin, once you’ve discovered it, you want to have it in your pocket every day. It has 2 sides, on the front it says purpose but that in and of itself doesn’t tell you how to discover it but on the back, is the secret – your purpose is always about making a difference for someone or something outside of yourself. It’s never about you, it’s about what you give. It’s about giving, serving – giving value to someone/something outside of you.
You’re listening to me today and I can guarantee you that you have 1 or 2 core strengths but it’s hard for you to know them because it’s like a fish swimming in an aquarium. They are so good at it but they don’t know it because they are just doing it naturally. So, you need to ask a client/business associate ask 5 people what they think you do best. Put them together and it tells you your core strength to identify impact and what to focus on.
When you discover your core strengths, it will inform how you grow your business.
You created the three-step “Formula for Creating Wealth”. What are the steps and how can our listeners use them in their business or finances?
There are 3 steps – conscious, focus, action. The big impact vision fits in that piece. People who reach hundreds of millions they spend a lot of time at the conscious level of figuring out where they want to go and what’s the best route for getting there. Why are they focused on this number one priority over the next 30 days and why is this the number 1 priority and those are the people who are most successful.
The entrepreneurs that skip that step to focus on action, they are the ones who are least successful because if you don’t know where you’re going and if you don’t have a plan for getting there then all the action in the world is meaningless. It’s like the scare crow in the wizard of Oz. If you don’t know where you’re going any road is just as good as any other road. If you have a laser focused vision then when all these things come along that are exciting but are distractive, you know that those aren’t your opportunities and you’re able to filter through opportunities very quickly and go ‘great opportunity but not right for me or not right for me right now’. That’s what happens when you’re laser focused, you consciously take time to know where you’re headed, why it’s important and what resources you need to get there and then look at different paths to get there before you take action. That’s the best time you could spend on businesses.
There are 7 habits in your book. If you could only choose one to develop, which would it be and why?
Number 4 – the habit that defines being a conscious millionaire and that’s doing the right thing. If you always do what you believe in your heart is the right thing for your customer, employees, independent contractors that takes care of having to have a lot of rules because you’re really focused doing what’s right for everyone.
Main Take-Aways:
Being conscious means to be aware, a visionary and socially aware.
A big impact vision starts off with a core of something big, having nothing to do with putting money in the bank.
Always choosing to do the right thing is a habit that defines being a conscious millionaire.
