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Welcome to the High Level People Podcast with your host PJ Cursunzo. This is the show where every week we go inside the minds of modern market leaders. These are world-class entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and ministry leaders who are making a generational impact on the world today. The question is, if you're going to compete, why not compete at the highest level possible? And that's what this show is designed for, to give you a playbook for your life so that you can to climb levels week after week. This is the High Level People Podcast, and welcome to today's episode. Welcome to the High Level People Podcast. Today I have an incredible leader, somebody who's acted as a mentor, a friend. He manages a book of business with over$10 billion. He learned the English language within the last 5 years, born and raised in Peru. He's an avid reader and somebody that inspires me consistently to level up, which is why he is a perfect guest for the High Level People Podcast. Aaron Montt, welcome to the show. Thank you, PJ. How are you doing? I'm doing absolutely incredible, my friend. That's phenomenal. All right, so first question, we're going to dive right in because I know you and I both like to go 100 miles an hour. It's a lot more fun. So walk me through growing up in Peru, which I just found out 5 minutes before the episode started, and being a grown man transitioning and coming to America. Cultural shock, difference of building relationships, how different that was, learning the language. Like, just walk me through your journey from growing up internationally and moving to the United States. Absolutely. Here's the part that nobody tells you, and I'll share a little bit of kind of story, and then the part that nobody tells you when you move countries. The first part is born and raised in Peru, had an incredible mother that was always loving, caring, and had basically my dad and my stepdad. But I love, I love them both because he was always in my life and my dad was always in my life, sometimes from a distance, but he always provided and taught me a lot of things, a lot of business. My stepdad, who I also love like, like, like a dad, he raised me. He was since I'm a couple of months old and It was incredible because it gave me two high-level performance leaders that I could borrow a lot of that identity. And I started school, I changed schools 3 times. In the third school, I didn't happen to be the most liked guy. I was bullied for 5 years. That put me in a situation that, that made me want to go into sports. I threw myself into books. In jiu-jitsu. I found my love for business and I found my love for martial arts. I felt that I finally could defend myself. National champion in my country. And then all of a sudden I start developing my career since I'm at the university. I've always invested into myself, go to programs, and I got to a phase that I was not having fun. I was frustrated. I was— I felt drained, and I realized that I was not trying to pursue my dreams. I was trying to pursue someone else's dream for me. Made the tough decision to start from zero and move into this country to start my MBA. I was doing two MBAs at the same time. Thank God I got scholarships on both. And the tough part nobody tells you is that it's not only a reset in, let's say, financially and— or what is it called? In a place, it's an identity reset. And the reason why, because you don't have the same contacts, you don't have the same ability to call the people you know. You're going to go on walks and think, did I do the right thing? I all of a sudden sold my house. I invested into this thing called NFTs at that time. I made a million and I lost a million. Devastating. But to kind of, uh, that identity mindset allowed me to do two things. One, it was so tough at the beginning that I wanted to quit everything. But two, it was so tough that eventually made me and gave me the opportunity to develop a new identity. And then life changed, and God has been my main pillar in this phase. Wow, bro, you said so many things that I want to capture and process. So having two incredible male figures that you were able to lean on in your journey, always being hungry, learning to defend yourself, which I'm sure helped build some confidence after, you know, getting your confidence tore down by the world, uh, betting it all, losing it all, two MBAs, coming to America. So I guess I'll start with the question that's probably the most important for a lot of the audience, which is How has your relationship with your faith developed through this journey? Because I know there's probably a lot of spiritually intense moments, you know, even, even being willing to go to another country. So what is your— and then what not only has your journey of faith developed, but what was it like growing up? Like, just kind of walk me through your faith journey from, from origin to today. Yeah, um, I'm, uh, I was raised Catholic and God was always part of my life, and I, I learned a lot of the ways of doing church and praying the rosary. And it was always a fundamental piece because, like, when you're a kid being bullied for 5 years, it's intense. It's like, for you, it's— it's, uh, right now I look back, it's— and you kind of laugh for some moments, but at that time it was— to me it was tough. It was one of the toughest. It's like life or death. I mean, your identity is being torn apart by the people you're looking up to or you want validation from. So exactly. And, uh, growing up I had both incredible leaders to follow, of course, with the flaws and the relationship sometimes not that strong, different things, but at the end of the day, grateful. God was always the center of my life. Sometimes I moved the center to the side, but it was always the center. And that's to me so important because I don't get to have the life I have if I don't trust him. I don't get to have the life I have if I wouldn't put it in the center. And I want to make sure that everyone hears this from me, is any and absolute every single thing you can see as piece of success, as story, as anything, has been a gift from God. And I openly share about it because I never want to be the guy that elevates himself I want to make sure, and if you see me walking around the office, wherever, I'm always carrying this with me. I'm reading it. I'm— this is my pillar, is my base. But the number one thing I don't get to have— I don't deserve the life I have, but God has gifted it to me, and I'm grateful for that. Wow, that's beautiful, brother. How have you developed the confidence? I'd say in

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the confidence to be as public with your faith as you are, right? Maybe it's a part of gratitude, but even the confidence to vocalize the clarity of standards, expectations, and performance that you have being younger, where, you know,$10 billion book of business, somebody might be 2 or 3 times your age. What has just the evolution of confidence and boldness look like for Aaron Mont for both your faith and also the expectations you set on others? Absolutely. So let me show you a picture, and I think it's going to give you more understanding. Number one is most people start— the first question was, hey, how did you develop that confidence to talk so strongly about God? First of all, why I wouldn't? But second of all, the more you spend time with God, the more you start understanding what the fear of the Lord is. When you understand what the fear of the Lord is, you want me to fear the devil? You want me to fear people? There's moments in my life that I had that recently, even with friends, with people I know, they say something. I'm more scared of that feeling that I have and of feeling that God is telling me, say something about that. I don't like that. And me having to confront, I'm more afraid of that than whatever the person is going to tell me. I love that, brother. Let's go. In, um, in regards to, to, to the confidence, man, I was, I was not, not always a confident person. I was someone that, if we could say, uh, I was like a toothpick. Trying to find this picture so you can see. Uh, of course, but that was a toothpick, right, bro? And And that was in Peru? That's Peru. Wow. But next thing you know, I would say 2 areas, 3 areas. One, I don't think that I can win because just me and I'm incredible. I think I can win because I have God on my side. Two, there's one thing that I know, probably one of my biggest gifts that God has given me is the constant hunger to look for the next version of myself. I am February 20th, I've already read 12 books for the year so far. I'm hungry, I want to find that next version, and I know that if I find the next version, everything's going to be fine. And then number 3, something that PBD, my mentor, my CEO, taught me was one of the biggest ways to increase your confidence is coming through with the things that you said. If you say something, even let's say you're threatening someone, of course not in a bad way, but hey, hey, stop talking like that because if not, I'm going to stop talking to you. But you keep talking to the person, so the person keeps insulting you and you feel like, oh, it's okay. The moment you start coming through with the things you say in your performance, in your word, in relationship, Such a confidence builder. That's incredible. I mean, I think that right there is a formula for success even in and of itself. God and gratitude, hunger for more, willingness to reinvent yourself, and honor the commitments you make. I mean, if you do those 4 things, it's going to be tough not to have a beautiful life. Transition into— yeah, go ahead. If I can add, there's periods— because I want to, I want to share— there's periods that I've lost the hunger. And we all go through it because most people say, oh, I've never gone through it, never gone through it. No, there's periods that you lose it or you decrease it. And it's important to know that when that happens, it's the perfect moment to recreate yourself. It's not a moment to say, well, I already made it, or you know what, I'm— I cannot fix this, or how can I do it? How can I do it? Those are the moments that you have to throw yourself into events. You have to throw yourself into different areas, but it happens. I love that. Yeah, loss of hunger is an opportunity to trigger recreation. Maybe it's time for a new identity. So being with BetDavid Consulting, was that the first opportunity you had in America? Did you come right from Peru into BDC or was it Peru, MBA, BDC? Like what did— Story. I don't know if I can share it, but it was so funny how life works. When I came here, I was scared. I didn't know what to do. I'll share this story. I started working for a smoothie place that— what is it? Kosher? Kosher smoothie place. The day I go is the day they fire me. And I was like, you cannot— This was right after making a million, losing a million, go to a place, they fire me the same. I'm like, okay, out of all the money that I had, I put 50% into my living expenses so I can have a little bit of a run rate and 50% into recreating myself. I went to every single event. I did all the coaching, and he was one of the main pillars. Tony Robbins was another one. When I went to The Vault, I found a place that I found 3 different things. First of all, when we went— when I went to the event, he opened the session saying, guys, put your wallets away. We have nothing to sell you for 4 days. We'll sell you once at the end for 5 minutes. To me, it's like, so, so you're actually going to deliver value for 4 days? Got it. Because I've gone to every single event, and I respect that it's a business model. I'm not saying this bad, but to me, it impacted me because it showed me customer first. Number 2, they were— Pat sold the company for a quarter of a billion. And he had a hunger and fire like if he was just getting started. And I said, I need— Number 3, he sold the vision of capitalism in America, and I fall in love with it. Vault ends, I reach out to Patrick, pay for his time, offer to work for free. Next thing you know, go through the HR recruiting process. He's paying me since day one, but my life changed. He's been a mentor, someone that I respect, I love, and someone that has guided me every single step. If there are 3 lessons you could extract from working with PBD that you could deliver to a young entrepreneur and entrepreneurs maybe going through a tough season, what, what have you been able to extract from working with Pat that could maybe help somebody get the fire back, go to the next level, raise their standards? Just kind of 3 downloads from being inside PBD headquarters. Yeah, one of the things And I think it's going to make sense, the order. But the first one is, are you happy with your situation? Are you pissed off? Are you prideful? Are you frustrated? That's on you. Whatever you're feeling about your situation, it's on you. The good news, it's on you. A lot of times I see leaders saying, yeah, but I was talking to a CEO yesterday, a$40 million company. Well, it's the third time I fired my entire finance team. So I'm like, third time, I asked him the question, hey, respectfully, just out of curiosity, if it's a third time and there's a pattern that that's happening, do you think it's on them or maybe the way they're being led? There was silence for 2 minutes and he said, no, I respect that. I think it's on me. So whatever you're doing, it's not your team, It's not anyone else. It's you. The moment you realize that, you're going to be able to start moving forward. That's the first one. Second one. Yeah, it's to me with Pat, the number one thing is there's no excuses. It's high accountability. And he respects more you taking ownership than trying to put an excuse to cover why you didn't do something. I love that. All right, so first one, extreme ownership. Your situation is on you. Uh, the second one I would say is anything that you want to change, you're one book away, one event away, one conversation away, one mentor away. That ability to recreate yourself, something comes in a form of a book, the right book. The difference of you reading a book today and figure out a strategy to how to prepare your company to exit is the difference of you exiting the business in 3 years for $150 million versus maybe $50 million. What is that book worth? Probably $100 million in the right time. Wow. The right mentors give you the right, uh, strategies at the right time. So always seek mentorship. Number 3. And then number 3, man, everything, uh, comes down to leadership. A good leader sets the example. One of the things I respect so much from Pat— Patrick probably outworks 99, if not 95, or the entire company, and he doesn't have to, uh, but he does because he has a real vision. Number 2, he— it's someone that pushes other people to do things they wouldn't do on their own. So that ability of a leader to drive others to make decisions that maybe they're not ready, but the leader can forecast that's exactly what they need and influence, not mandate, not dictate, influence, influence for them to make the decision to move forward. That's, that's an ability. And the third one on leadership is the ability to recreate yourself. If I'm able to consume and I'll put it this way, why I love to consume books so much 2 aspects. The first aspect is I was not my best friend. You leave me alone and I would go down the rabbit hole and why I'm so bad and why. So I needed to build up a way of pouring so much good here that I could become my best friend. And then the other one, to me, one book is 20 years of experience. Every book I read, I feel like I've lived 20 years. The moment I cruise, I cross, let's say I'm 12 books for the year, I have 240 years of wisdom. What is that worth to me? Why would I, why would I, why I wouldn't read a book? So that's where my mind goes. I want to go down the rabbit hole of reading books, but I think that's more of a personal vice. And I think to the audience, it'll be more valuable to ask this question. So looking at leadership, what have you seen as the difference of identity in leaders that are doing a million, $10 million, and $100 million, because really working with you helped expand my idea for what was possible with revenue and what was possible for big business. So having proximity to these players, you know, you got general mastermind, maybe somebody's going from $100,000 to $1 million, right? We work with a lot of small business owners for financing, but then you're also talking to CEOs,$40 million, $50 million, $100 million in revenue. What is the difference in identity between these leaders as you climb the level? Absolutely. The first thing in regards to identity, you cannot out-earn your identity. I'm gonna say you cannot out-earn your identity. That's so good. It's such a— it was such a hard concept to understand because I was— yeah, but, but, but to, to, to— I, I don't want to deviate, but To me, your income shows me your level of identity and the level of problems you're solving. So when someone complains and say, well, why Elon Musk? Why is Trump getting paid so much in these companies? He's the president. Why is Elon Musk making so much money? Why is this person? It's like they're solving a bigger problem. The topic of the year for us, the word of the year that Patrick said for the company is Solving bigger problems. And wow, he shares— PBD shares what's the difference between a billion-dollar company,$10 billion, $100 billion, $1 trillion, and eventually$10 trillion company. What's the difference? They all work hard, they all read books, they all have incredible compensation packages, they all have all of that. They just happen to solve a bigger problem. So if your identity increases and your ability to solve bigger problems increases, your income will increase. So one of the biggest identities is most CEOs at the beginning, they think that— and I've had it when I was building the team, I thought I was going to be like, you know what, I need to become better. I need to become better in tribal leadership. They talk about 5 levels of, 5 levels of teams. Level 1 is basically life sucks. That's where gangs are created and all the things that you, that you see, the, the bad things because life sucks. So let's just make anything out of it. Second level is my life sucks. That's where you see some people being super— what is it called? Complainers, downers, soft. They be down. It's like, yeah, and this happens to me. This victim mentality. There you go, victim. The third one is, I am great, you're not. Believe it or not, way more healthy because you have someone that has beliefs in himself and can deliver and can do great things. That's ego. That's ego. But believe it, this is better than this one. Now level 4 is We are great. Level 5 is life is beautiful, life is incredible. Level 5 is so unstable. They were sharing that team gets to a level 5, like the second three-peat of the Chicago Bulls or the team that invented the Macintosh, and then they disassemble. So the number 4 is the one that you can stay at a consistent basis without the instability. Instability. Wow, that's beautiful. So the reason why I'm sharing that is because if I develop a company, a team that are— I have 100 people working so hard to get one, one goal, I cannot outwork 100 people. I can work 2, 3, 4. If you think maybe you're so good, 10. You can't compete with a team, a team that is united a good culture, a good vision, everyone on the same page, and they're outworking, out-improving, out-strategizing, and outlasting— forget about it. You can't compete. That, to me, that's the formula. Have 100 people to work as hard to the same vision that are getting compensated on the upside for, uh, outpacing everyone. What are some of the biggest mistakes leaders make in investing into their team, building their team, right? So let's say they get these incredible concepts from that David Consulting. They're like, I got the vision. Where do the mistakes happen in implementation? Where do you see CEOs and leaders going back and then not getting the results that you designed for them because of the maybe improper implementation strategies or delivery? Where do you see that breakdown occur? Yeah, here's the thing. Most people sometimes confuse because our consulting firm is completely different because we actually put you in front of someone that have done it before. For. So let's say you want to raise money, you want to raise $40 million. We sit you down with someone that has personally raised $2.2 billion. You want to build a sales team, let's say, hey, I want to build a sales team, 30 people, 100 people. We put in front of someone that built a 60,000-agent sales team. So it's driven by experience. So what I would see, I would say and see patterns or the pattern recognition business. Sometimes the CEO comes and they say, you know what, I want to, um, I want to, I want to consult with you. You get the strategy, but then they're like, I got everything I needed. And they go back, they, they never have— even if it's not us, they have— they never, uh, they don't have more mentor, they have no one. They apply this strategy, they have small growth and all of a sudden you start seeing decline, decline, or flat here. Two, they don't apply it for long enough. They, they make— I want to change the compensation. One week after, doesn't work. Let's change it again. This, this didn't work. Hey, like, it's taking some time. Um, and then the other one is the willingness. The number one thing that, that when I talk to CEOs, are you willing to recreate yourself, to go to the next level? To me, that question is so important because if you're not willing, I'll tell you, we cannot work with you. So you can go to our events, you can go to someone else's event, or recommend you someone. If you're not willing, there's nothing we can do. That's incredible. How have you been able to discern quantity versus quality? So 12 books, right? Which, by the way, I'm going to give you a word of encouragement because you're legitimately one of the only people I've ever met on planet Earth who I'm inspired by, motivated by, and challenged by within the same 50-mile radius of a birthdate. So I'm thinking I'm crushing it with 7 books in, and then I get this guy who's already read 12. I'm like, Aaron Mott, there you go again. I'm inspired. But still, you know, right? You read— when you're, when you're downloading so much information, how have you been able to discern a high quantity of personal development versus quality of implementation and growth? I want to tell you something that, uh, most people probably won't agree. I don't believe in overload. What do you mean overload? What do you mean it's too much? What do you mean consumption? So let me get it straight. You're telling me that if I consume more positive knowledge 5 times, 3 times, 2 times 10 times the positive knowledge that you consume, I'm somehow going to have worse results. Hmm. Let's say, oh, but you don't have time to implement. But here's the thing. I'm not only counting on the— let's say I read a book, I implement it immediately. My team can tell you every week, new things, new things, new things. But I'm not relying on that, believe it or not. What I'm relying is Changing my inside chip, that subconscious, that gets all your mind, it's so powerful and so well fed that eventually it's going to show. I love that. All right, so to deviate slightly, how do you stay focused on the primary responsibilities you have of managing the firm Wow. If I had to guess, but maybe I'm off, I get a dreamer vibe and mentality from your energy of somebody who wants to do massive things. So how do you find yourself staying 10 toes down in the responsibilities of the day, but also reaching for the stars for everything that's possible for the future? I think there's a couple of things. I'll give you one. I heard one Tony Robbins said, the quality of your life determined of the quality— the quality of your questions is determined by the quality of your questions. Something that I learned from Pat is putting a business plan together. I'm a visual guy. I want to share what my word of the year is for me, thinking big, urgency, obsession, statement, letter to myself, what my vision is for this year, what's my vision board, what I will do, powerful questions. Does this align to the identity I'm working on developing? Hmm. Will this make me more duplicatable or more dependent on myself? What would I do? What would I dream of if I knew I couldn't fail? How often dream and visualize in your future truth? What would I dream of if I knew I couldn't fail? Yeah. So if you're listening to this episode, I'm going to encourage you to pause it. Just sit wherever you're listening into this right now, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, pause the episode and ask yourself, what would you dream if you knew you couldn't fail? What an incredible question to ponder. Absolutely. Then for me, some people call it affirmations, they call it identity for this year. And then at the end, all the numbers, the logic side, but to me is, I know everyone, most people, they know what they need to do. They know what is next. They know what, um, what strategy. They hire someone, a consultant. They go to an event, they figure out. But most of the time they need to fuel and fire an urgency and thinking bigger to do something that they— it's like if I'm going to work 10 hours a day, 14 hours a day, 16 hours a day why I wouldn't go all in, why I wouldn't solve a bigger problem. It makes no sense. And the obsession of becoming so good that when people talk to you, they're like, I respect this guy so much, I want to be like this guy. You can set the example. Because for me, if I want to say that God is with me, I need to do my best for people to say, I want to learn from that guy, and give me the opportunity to say, you know what, Let's go to church together. Let's spend some time in the world. Let's join the Bible study. I want to develop that. That's beautiful, brother. What— well, I'll ask two questions. So I want to circle back to the team just to capture the moment of how you manage your team, what the team structure looks like within BDC. How have you guys created and enforced the floor for your sales organization? So when it comes to accountability and standards, What does that look like for minimum levels of activity, what the expectations are? So not only creating it, but then also holding the team accountable to it. What does that look like for you? Yeah, there's a lot, but I'll give you 3. One, we have something called the perfect week. So basically, we designed activities and results that if you do on a consistent basis would be the perfect week. So there's an element of that pride of, am I hitting my perfect week? And if you hit your perfect week, this is how much your income would be. And if you hit the perfect week, this is the type of business you would have. So there's an element, believe it or not, it's not just like, hey, how are you doing it? It's if you want to get here, this is a perfect week designed for you. That's one. Two, there's an element of competition. If you believe competition is not good, then you probably shouldn't watch sports. Everyone loves sports until they're the one that have to get in the arena. I didn't like competition. I was like, what is this all about, this competition? I love that in sports, but then on business, it's like somewhat difficult and you're trying to understand it. Eventually you realize if I want to find the next version of myself, I need to fall in love with competition. So the second one is competition. The third one I would tell is it happens that if you're a CEO, you're a business unit leader, you're a sales leader, and you have a team, there has to be a creative incentive, innovative campaign that, for example, top 3 people that does this, we're going to go to an event. The top person that is going to do this, I'm going to take him to a final game. The top person that does this, I'm going to give you a luxury rental car that you're going to be able to use. The top person that— so there has to be a— sometimes accountability is too much, like, and I made that mistake. Where are your numbers? What do you have going on? Why you haven't? Then you really ask, hey, let me elevate the way I do the accountability. I love that. So perfect week for sales. So any sales leaders listening to this episode, I'm going to implement all 3 immediately. So I appreciate the the free insight from a selfish perspective. Design the perfect week for the ideal income business you want. Competition, because I think sales is the greatest sport on planet Earth. So if you're over 18 and you never made your varsity team, get into sales 'cause you compete for the next 80 years. And innovative campaigns, do something exciting to get the culture invigorated and bought in. We're actually doing our first innovative campaign. I've been in the role 5 months, but we have a 21-day sales challenge for a trip to Vegas mastermind, which is a big event for our industry. And just to put this into perspective, the organization never logged more than 600 conversations in our database. Week 1, we had over 1,800 conversations. We had 3 times the amount of quality conversations week 1 of an innovative campaign. So it works. If anybody's wondering if innovative campaigns work, they work. Campaign plus competition, bulletproof formula. What are your non-negotiables? 2026, you're on this rapid 5-year journey of just growth and you've surrounded yourself with some of the best minds in modern-day business, what are your non-negotiables that you try to hold yourself to daily, weekly, monthly habits and rhythms in 2026? Part of me says, yeah, well, if you translate it, they would be my non-negotiables. But there's one challenge that I have maybe, and again, this is me, might not apply for some, but The problem that I have with non-negotiables— so there's 3 levels of doing changes. 1, you can change what you do. 2, you can change the systems, meaning it becomes automatic. 3, you can work on the identity. The problem with non-negotiables to me is tasks. I, like, good, I did it, and eventually I become— But if my focus is on tasks, what identity am I developing? I flip it and say, my identity is I'm the kind of guy that reads the Bible every day. I'm the kind of guy that— now, do I read it every day? I failed a couple of days, so I'm not saying— when I say this, I don't come from a, you have to be perfect and that's who you is. I want to develop that self-image of myself that I'm that type of guy. I'm the type of guy that eventually is going to become a managing partner. I'm the type of person that eventually is going to be worth a couple billion, $11 billion. I'm the— so I want to work on my identity over working on the tasks. So good. Well, and it actually reminds me of, I had a guest on, incredible episode. He had a $50 million business and he felt the Lord tell him to give it away. He gave away a $50 million business. True story. In 2025, uh, Scott Donald— I'll share the episode with you— and it was like modern-day obedience, like Noah's Ark. He didn't sell it, he didn't exit, he retired all of his shares, gave them to charity, and went into ministry. And when I asked him, well, when you were building this $50 million business, what were your goals, what were your habits, what were your routines? And he said, we never set goals. We only focused on automating systems. We wanted automated systems that were profitable. So what systems do we have that are automated and what systems do we have that are profitable? And that was only our focus. So they say, hey, we want to do$100 million in revenue. He's like, no, we want to have 100 quality leads come in automatically that convert and get booked. So I like what you said about identity because that's kind of the personal version of, you know, we both set big goals, we have targets, but you're not focused on can I check 18 things off a list? You just want to become the type of person that does the highest quality tasks. Naturally. Yeah. And by the way, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying not system for business. I'm saying on the personal side, when you ask me non-negotiables, I rather prefer to focus on identity. And sometimes identity is going to crack, but that's the idea of building it. I love that. How have you bridged the gap between the future version of identity that you want to be? I think a lot of people refer to it as imposter syndrome, this idea of fake it till I make it. Versus actually having the confidence to carry yourself and speak this over yourself on a daily basis where maybe there is a delta between who you are today and where you want to be, right? $11 billion. Your suit looks beautiful, but I don't think it's an $11 billion suit yet. But I believe you'll get there. How do you manage that? Yeah, that's, that's the part. For example, I'm not encouraging people to leaders to, hey, fake it till you make it. And I think it's more— I'll give you an example. Okay, let's say you're up and coming, you're starting to make your first six figures, you're doing $100,000 a year in income. What's the challenge there on the identity? Is the first year you make it, you don't believe that it was you, you believe it was luck. If I fall for the false belief— by the way, they both can be false because you say, oh well, maybe it was not because of me, maybe it was luck. That's one belief. Two is, no, I put so much work that I deserve that. Three, hey, God gifted me this, but I want to keep advancing it. Objectively, logically, you don't know which one is true. Why would I believe that? Why would I want to believe that I'm gonna— it was luck and I'm gonna go down year over year? If you're gonna work harder, if you're gonna read more, if you're gonna strategize more, if you're gonna get more hunger, why would I want to believe that? So my next question at $100,000 would be, perfect, what would it take for me to get to $250,000? And say, how am I dressing? When I started dressing, I would wear jeans a colored shirt and a different color jacket. I didn't know how to combine things. So the next level was, okay, let's find a way, only white shirts. Then the next level was, hey, what if I start wearing same suit? What if I start wearing custom suits? What if I— Stefano, all of these things. So when I'm saying that, I'm not saying go spend buy a Bugatti while you're making$100,000 is what is that next step? If you would be making— if you're making a million a year, what would someone doing$1.5 million a year look like, talk like? Um, I'll give an example. Like, some people say, hey, you have to do these, you have to. What if we, we change it? But hey, can I give you a suggestion? Are you open to some feedback? Yes. My recommendation, or if I were you, I ought to do X, Y, and Z. Oh, let's go to another one. Someone says, yeah, I don't believe that. I think you're wrong. What if we change the language? Do you think that's how Jamie Dimon talks in a boardroom? Do you think how a private banker, private managing partner of McKinsey talks like? No, it would be probably Again, I'm going to tell you with what I think. I don't know if I have that level yet. If not, I would already be a managing partner. So, but it would be probably maybe some like, hey, first of all, I greatly appreciate you sharing that with me, and I'm not sure if I would fully agree with that. I hear the part that you're saying here. What I'm not sure is this, this, and that. And I'm coming from a place that I know we're both solving for the big picture. So if we're solving for speed, I can see where you're coming from, but I don't know if we're solving for speed. So what do you think? That's the positioning, it's the framework, it's the way that you reposition the information to, to get the target outcome you're looking for. I love that. All right, so I got 3 final questions for you, and then I'll end with a prayer request if we have anything on the table. So first is marriage, right? So recently married, how has marriage shifted or impacted your identity as a leader, as an entrepreneur? What does that journey look like, man? Let me tell you, um, your the level that you're gonna rise up as a king depending on the quality of the queen. And wait, hold on, don't say anything else. Hold on, let me just run that back. The level in which you're going to rise as a king is the quality of your queen. High Level People Podcast, if you want to level up, level up your queen. So incredible. All right. Continue. Me and my wife, Le, I love her so much. The first year, it was so hard. We would fight for everything. We wanted to— at one point, I said, I'm done. I'm done with this thing of marriage. But then we brought God into our marriage, and he cared for us. He fixed us. He showed us the way. And I realized And I tell— people think that— you can ask people close to me, and I tell them, I don't know if you realize, I wouldn't be where I'm at if it was not because of my wife. She got me closer to God. She got me to improve myself. She challenged me, not kind of verbally challenged me, but me having to step up to be a leader, to lead the family, challenged me to become a better leader. So first year, super tough. The more we relied on God— she has her own Bible study, I have my own Bible study, we come together, we pray. Things are not easy, and God never promised to be easy, but he promised to be beside you. And if I have him and I can have that trust, I'm good, man. But without Lay, I don't get to the level that that, that I've been able to develop that for me, I'm just getting started, but I wouldn't be even have the ability to be growing like this if I wouldn't have such a great woman like her. I love that. Well, thank you for sharing the gratitude. I think even when you shared the 5 levels of a team, I think it applies to marriage too, which is we're good, life is beautiful. You can kind of transfer back and forth between 4 and 5. I think the same thing happens in marriage. I've recently heard there is no death without resurrection in the kingdom. So everything that feels like it's about to die, your Creator is waiting for the opportunity to resurrect the painful experience you're going through. And a lot of times people want peace. We're all seeking peace. Blessed are the peacemakers. So we think peace is comfort. They're like, man, if I could just get a little bit more comfortable, I'd have peace. But the reality is peace is being comforted in the storm. It's not the absence of the storm. So my theme for the team this week is we need to get better at dancing in the rain because it's not going to stop raining. But right now every single person is suffocating in puddles. So learn how to dance in the rain and that's where the peace comes from. So, so that's beautiful, brother. Thank you for sharing kind of your journey in marriage. All right. So second to last question, we got two more. Aaron Montz Masterclass. If you were going to sell a bundled kit to the modern-day entrepreneur if they're going to shed one limiting belief, they're going to get one book, they're going to just implement one new strategy. What's kind of the 3-page pamphlet in the Aaron Mott Masterclass? So I'll ask that again. They need to shed one limiting belief. They can read one book and they're going to implement one new strategy. What would it be? The first one, destroy one limiting belief. Yeah, the, the first limiting belief that I would suggest and recommend, uh, someone to work on is— and comes in two, two different types of languages maybe, but it's the same— I'm not good enough, I don't deserve it. To me, those ones I felt that I was not good enough to talk to someone on a camera 5 years ago. I could barely speak, like, you know, try— still, I don't know all the words and sometimes I'm trying to find it. Your English is impeccable. So I just want to let you know your English is impeccable. So shed whatever— if there's even a hint that it exists around your language, you can shed that from your brother, from your Italian brother, PJ Cursenzo. I'm going to give that to you. Shut it off. I love that. So that one, that I'm not good enough— because usually when you believe you're not good enough is when you don't try next level things, because you're so concerned on the current state that you have that you don't allow yourself to vision and dream the next phase. So if you don't vision and dream the next phase, how are you going to get there? By accident? It's very rare. All right, that's incredible. All right, so entrepreneurs Part 1, you just got the free first edition of the Aron Ma Masterclass. Get rid of I'm not good enough and get rid of I don't deserve it. Now, number 2, if you had a book recommendation for the 2026 entrepreneur, what's in your Hall of Fame? There's my whole time. I'll give you 2 and you'll understand why. But if you can only live with one book and you had to pick, there's, there's these famous, extremely famous book. Called the Bible. Every man that wants to get closer to God, elevate their results, elevate their identity— everything happens because of God, through God, and sometimes you find it in a form of a workbook, of a book, of something else, but everything starts here. That would be my number one. And if I had to recommend one more, I would Yeah. And I would have to recommend one more. It would be Your Next Five Moves. It's probably one of the greatest books in strategy that I've ever read. Um, it's by Patrick Bet-David. I love it. All right. The Bible and Your Next Five Moves. You got one move, which is come to Christ, and then you got five moves for your business. All right. Last part of the Arant Mott Masterclass, one new strategy, right? You're somebody that's been phenomenal on strategies. So I knew this, this is going to apply to all industries, but just what is a strategy you've seen working, you know, with your $10 billion book of business? What's something that you would encourage an entrepreneur today? One new strategy. And I'm going to have to break it down again in two. I know you don't like it, but yeah, I like it. I'll share it on one side, which is even part of my own business plan. That comes as a question, right? Will this make me more duplicatable or more dependent on myself? How can you duplicate yourself?

And I like asking this question: 48:45

what would happen if you have 5 PJs in your company, 10 PJs in your company? There'd be a lot of caffeine. I love that. And a lot of let's-goes. And probably a lot of results, and probably you would 10 to 20x your business. Yeah, so that's, that's something that, again, I'm, I'm working— we're all constantly working— but on that side, work on duplicating yourself a little bit more. To me, it's been one of my biggest, uh, blind spot, weakness, however you want to say it, and I'm making an effort on working more on it because I realized if I want to solve a big problem I cannot do it on my own. On the other side, I would say obsess over recreating yourself. I don't know what that means to you, but you know that vice that is holding you back, that identity that is holding you back, that way of thinking that is holding you back, that way of even communicating— obsess over finding the next version of yourself. That's incredible. I'll share a quick story before we ask the final question, which is you've been a huge source of encouragement on recreating myself. And I was recently doing the 2-day Brand Builders event where they go deep on personal brand, and they said, how honest can we be with you? Like, how— what's the level of constructive criticism we can give in this session? And I said, my favorite love language is ruthless accountability, so fire away. And they said, if you want to be the caliber of entrepreneur that you want to be, you must shave your head. You're not allowed to grow your hair out. They said, you look terrible. They said, you must have a barber appointment every single week. So now I have a barber appointment every Monday. My hair will never be longer than a 3 because I've had a receding hairline since 12 years old. And I said, I love it, I need to recreate myself. So barber every single Monday, it is now on the calendar through the rest of 2026. And I was able to receive that feedback because of my brother Aaron saying, you got to be obsessed about recreating yourself. So I said, bring it to me. Um, so I just thought that's a funny story. So if you really want to recreate yourself, be willing to shave literally everything, including your head. All right, last question. When it's all said and done, you just retired as the CEO of Lyon Holdings, you got 8 kids that are speaking 6 languages apiece, you're closing Outlook for the last time— what does Aaron Mont want to be known for? Uh, first of all, I don't think I would retire. I think I would just pass away while working. I would love to be known as a leader that put God first and someone that brought thousands, if not millions, of people's lives to God through example through pushing them to things, to do things they wouldn't do on their own. And someone that is respected because changing the entire industry, set the example in multiple areas of life. And someone that people maybe want to see as someone that, you know what, I love the way he did this as a blueprint. If they can take my life as a blueprint and it helped That would be one. And of course, to me, one of the greatest CEOs of the century. That's incredible, brother. Aaron, thank you so much for your time. Before I end today's episode, do you have any prayer requests or anything coming up in your life that I can pour into before we get off today's episode? Yeah, a prayer request for my next phase of life and for a dear friend that I know needs God in their life. Okay, absolutely. All right, so brother, if you don't mind, I'm gonna say a quick prayer before we wrap, and then I will end today's episode. So, dear Heavenly Father, I just want to thank you so much for this moment of fellowship. Lord, I just want to thank you for the anointing and the favor you've had on Aaron's life. Lord, continue to use him as a vessel as he gets into some of the highest rooms. Lord, let him be just a walking seed for your gospel, for your kingdom. Let him plant those seeds so that they can just sprout and blossom. Lord, I pray over this next season, may there be supernatural wisdom and understanding as Aaron makes decisions, as he searches for impact. May the Holy Spirit guide his tongue, guide all of his conversations. Lord, just be with him, be a shield. Let him be a city on a hill. Let him be a lighthouse in his organization, Lord. And we also pray over Aaron's friend. If there is a prodigal son, put curiosity on his heart. Let him draw back to the gospel. Let him start wrestling with you, Lord, because we know that you are not afraid of any tough question, of any challenge. You are Jehovah Jireh, and there's not a single battle that you cannot win. So, Lord, we just thank you so much for this moment in time. We pray over Aaron, his marriage, his business. May you continue to bless and favor him and let him step into abundance and just continue to give us favor so that we can glorify your name. Lord, we love you. We praise you. We honor you. And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's go, brother. Thank you so much for the time. I will send a link if anybody wants to connect with you more about going to the next level in their business. God bless and have an amazing day. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the High Level People Podcast. If you learned anything from today's content or if it made a positive impact on your life in any way, please feel free to subscribe on your favorite platform. More importantly, if you think there's somebody in your life who would benefit from today's episode, please shoot them a link. Encourage them to do the same. Encourage them to subscribe because every week we're committed to adding value. I look forward to seeing you soon. Hope you guys have a blessed day, blessed week, and let's go.