Dan Pascone: tailored wealth and host of the Making Sense of Your Money podcast, real conversations to help high earners make sharper decisions so their money works as hard as they do. And today I'm joined by Brandon Fleurde to break down how top sales performers can turn a high income career into a launch pad for autonomy and why avoiding lifestyle inflation matters. And then how AI is reshaping the value of knowledge workers. All right, Brandon, thanks for joining today. As I told you beforehand, you are one of my favorite followers on LinkedIn, so I'm excited to chat with you today, man. Thanks for coming on.
Brandon Fluharty: Hey Dan, thanks for having me, man. Really appreciate it.
Dan Pascone: You bet, you bet. So I have a lot that I wanna get into, so let's get right into it. If you don't mind, share with the audience a little bit of your background, and I know you've got a very, very interesting story, which I'm excited to unpack a bit, but tell us about your background and then what's led you to what you're doing today. and the frameworks that he uses to help sellers build income, freedom, and future optionality. This one's all about designing your career before it designs you. So before we dive in, make sure you're subscribed on your favorite platform. And if you find the show valuable, I'd really appreciate you leaving a quick review. Thanks so much and enjoy.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah, so growing up, I was an aspiring soccer player, tried my luck in Europe, unfortunately didn't didn't work out. I I found that my ambition far exceeded my actual talent. And I was quickly discovered when I was with a European professional team, ⁓ unfortunately into some injury issues. But that background was well suited the business world. didn't quite know it at the time, but ⁓ I eventually happened sales.
Dan Pascone: There you go.
Brandon Fluharty: I was in sales for about 17 years total throughout my corporate career. And I was an individual contributor throughout all of that, mostly by choice. I've been asked to be a leader many times, but I really prized freedom and autonomy. So I stayed in an individual contributor role ⁓ and climbed the from sales all the way into strategic accounts. in that last period, I was with a conversational AI company. In the last four years, I made more ⁓ those four years than my 13 years prior in sales. And always had ambitions beyond the corporate world to do my own thing, even if I didn't know what it was. And ⁓ that buffer, inflating my lifestyle during that really strong run as a strategic account seller allowed me to fund that and that's the phase I'm in now and I'm writing a book now. I call this phase of my life the evolve phase where I can sort of dictate the terms, what clients I work with, which are other individual contributors and sales, helping to pull them through and do something very similar to what I've done. And yeah, that's the world I live in now.
Dan Pascone: Very cool, I love it. So I have a sales background as well as many of our audience know, and I love the term, I happened into sales. That's how we all get into it, we all happen into sales, right? So I like that term. All right, so that's great. So tell us a little bit about what the business looks like today, who you serve, and ultimately what you're helping them to do.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so classic solopreneur, who's been ⁓ influential ⁓ that journey myself is maybe ⁓ many your audience knows him, Justin Welsh. Justin Welsh was somebody, yeah. ⁓
Dan Pascone: You're like the Justin Walsh of sales for me. That's the way I, that's what I was gonna say to you, but go ahead, you finish your thought.
Brandon Fluharty: I really appreciate that. And that's a high compliment to me because he was somebody who was instrumental, very similar background in that he was also in sales, mostly in medical sales as an individual contributor and then kind of climbed the ranks to a CRO at a hot startup. But he left the corporate world circa around 2018, 2019. And so he was always a few years ahead of me, but somebody that I respected and aspire to Can you be a one person business, sort of creating these outsized results, whether it be income or the impact you make on others, while still holding true to the life that you wanna lead? a good partner, ⁓ a good husband, being a good human ⁓ in and ⁓ explore curiosities. So that's really kind of what my business. is right now. And again, I'm fortunate that I was able to have a successful career in sales. And then really kind of use the earnings from that by not inflating my lifestyle, kind of giving myself almost a runway to step into this stage of life where I don't feel pressure like other maybe whether you're a content creator or solopreneur or even an entrepreneur. ⁓ maybe an earlier phase in life, if you didn't have the luxury of having a strong corporate background or corporate sales background that gave you high income, well, you're just sort of stepping into something with high stress and you're working around the clock to figure it out. And so I want it to be very deliberate and purposeful. I call, you know, this little media empire that I'm building on a very small scale. It's called the purposeful performer. So
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: The idea around it is be really intentional, specifically if you are in sales, you have great leverage, it's one of the best corporate roles to create those outsize asymmetric results that then you can cash in and say, all right, now it's time to completely redesign rules around the life that I wanna live, the business that I wanna create, the impact that I wanna create. Now I'm going to go do it and pull through. And so it starts to become a job that you're really good at with rules that were written by others to ⁓ you evolve and graduate to a space where you start designing the rules, which is not easy, but you start to get clearer and this work starts to feel like a calling, not to get too philosophical there, but that's kind of the idea. And that's what I do. I work with a handful of select enterprise and strategic individual contributors who are in sales, helping them to model this out and rethink their sales career as a launch pad, not an in destination to stay within. And especially as AI is putting pressure on the knowledge economy, that a good strategic or enterprise seller is going to be completely disrupted out of the role anytime soon, but it's coming for every knowledge worker. And so being conscious about that and being purposeful with your performance is a great way to sort of use your sales career as this launch pad to go do something that's probably calling at most sellers anyways, as it probably called you, right? We're kind of entrepreneurial at heart and then until we can kind of build that entrepreneurial brain,
Dan Pascone: Yep.
Brandon Fluharty: We're sort of stuck working for somebody else in perpetuity.
Dan Pascone: Yeah, that's really well said. I wanna put a pin in the pressure that's on today's knowledge worker, because I think that's a fascinating topic and I've read some of your content around that. But let's talk about making that shift from the corporate world to being your own boss and whatever that looks like. And I've done it and frankly, I faced a lot of those pressures that you reference. And I always tell people, entrepreneur thing is an addiction to some degree, but it ain't for everybody, for sure. But. I also talk with a lot of clients about this concept that I call hybrid retirement, which is the concept of transitioning from the grind of a daily corporate career and moving on later in your career into something that's more purposeful. that's more flexible, that's work that you really enjoy doing on your own terms. So you've got kind of these two different things that are weighing against you. Yeah, the latter sounds amazing, but having been someone that's gone through it to some extent, it's not always easy to get there. So how do you help the enterprise sellers that you work with make that transition from, a higher earning professional to I'm sort of writing my own script?
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah, man. Like, that's what lights me up. ⁓ ⁓ not a one and done. And the first thing that I get across to clients who are interested in this is one, they have a bit of that urge. And so it might be an inner voice, sort of at them saying, yeah, this is great. And it's great to be recognized, ⁓ get to Club, have the high earnings. But is this it? Is there something more? ⁓ those are the folks that I work with on a ⁓ basis. And we do a lot of coaching. We do a lot of asynchronous work back and forth, kind giving them some models and frameworks ⁓ to through because it's definitely a very personal journey. And it really starts with like an inner journey. Not so in a spiritual sense, but an inner journey in just clarifying like what it is that you really want and what it is that makes you unique and special and a high performer in a role. And I guess the best way that I can describe it that I sort of translate to my work with clients is I discovered this like the most unexpected places. It was actually, and you could probably appreciate this, it was when I was sitting down with my accountant and up to like for pretty much my whole career, my professional career. I'd been working with an accountant who had basic requirements year and ⁓ she was great. I would usually get actually a ⁓ It was always nice. But one year, right? When I went, and it was like ⁓ one after getting into strategic accounts, my income went through the roof. It was like a seven and a half X. ⁓ increase, I went from like 215 K, the, know, year one is a strategic account seller to 1.5 million W two ⁓ in two. And ⁓ we're and talking in the fall for getting ready, because I was warned, get ready for a big hefty tax bill. I reached out to Liz, and she was like, is beyond my purview. So she pulled in the managing partner and the managing partner also pulled in somebody the family home office and like just kind of, you know, for high net worth earners, a space that like ⁓ really new to But the bottom line, we were just sort of sitting around, you know, what are some tax advantage plays that we can make by the end of that year, but also The more poignant question that this person asked me, David, he asked, hey, if you're that good for somebody else, imagine what you could do on your own. Because as you know, right, tax laws favor entrepreneurs, right, builders, business owners. And again, it was something that I had always wanted to do. I just didn't know what that thing that I was going to do was going to be. But that question kept gnawing at me. And it produce a plan right away. It gnawing at me for months, even years. But that question, ⁓ if that good for somebody else, imagine what you could do on your own, did lead me to like ⁓ staying for three years, I was like top earner. And that tax burden started to really clarify a of things, which was
Dan Pascone: Okay.
Brandon Fluharty: Hey, know, there, the success here could be a trap. And there were other things that we were starting to do, like when the income started to increase, we were looking at the bigger home, I was thinking about that Porsche 911 that was always sort of a childhood dream. And these things became reality. But when it's having conversations with people who had my best interests, my family, financial advisors, and an accountant,
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: we could really start talking through those things, it all kept pointing back to what do I really prize freedom, autonomy. And so if I were to lock myself into the bigger mortgage, ⁓ know, the, the upgrades inflating my lifestyle, that freedom would have dissipated and I would have continued to have to grind it out. Being a top performer year over year for multiple years. And that type of stuff is not in my control. Right. And so anyways, That was an eye-opening moment. That question was a clarifying question that now I ask of my clients, hey, is success potentially the trap here? could you, if this successful for somebody else, imagine what you could do on your own. And exploring that question on an basis starts to clarify the things that they can start doing on an external basis, writing on LinkedIn, building the personal brand. consulting, coaching, fractional work. It leads to infinite options. And that's the idea, create new options for yourself.
Dan Pascone: Yeah, that's really well said. I I say it all the time that the tax code is written for business owners. you really start to see that as you progress. But to your point, if the lifestyle just inflates with your income and the corporate role, you become essentially a slave to that corporate role, right? Because you give away that optionality. So I think those are some really important points. Okay, so let's hone in on now, you're working with people that are just like what you once were, right?
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah. salute. Yeah.
Dan Pascone: ⁓ of looking to make that transition, which as we mentioned a couple times already is not an easy one to make. What does that work look like? Is it a combination of helping them to succeed financially in their current role while also building what's next for them and then sort of like layering in a little bit of like financial nuance and some education there? What does that overall look like as far as the here in the now? for someone that's still in the corporate role versus what they'd like to ultimately progress to.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah, so every person that I've asked, whether it's one on one coaching, whether it's through an email to 7000 subscribers, whether it's speaking at an event with hundreds of sellers there, when I asked the question, do you want to work in sales, you know, for the rest of your career, nobody raises their hand. But when I asked them, do you want to do your own thing? Do you want to run your own business? Everybody raises their their hand. But getting there, right, is fuzzy. wants to be their own boss, but it's like, how do you do it? So we work in, I really try to think about thinking in terms like design thinking and systems thinking so that you can take some of the emotion out of typically emotional decisions. and try to distill like universal principles frameworks that ⁓ applicable. And my experience, right, ⁓ as beneficial was, right, financial advisors, ⁓ very parts of like your coaching staff. I think like the clients that I work with are like specialists in some they're like Navy SEALs, they're like the professional athletes, they're the artists of the business world. you know, ⁓ no performer, ⁓ right? ⁓ business, military, whatever is, right? Doesn't have like a support system or coaching staff. So you need your financial advisor, you need a good CPA. You need like on the tactical side, you need somebody like even on like the health side, right? And so
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: you have all these these forces, but when it comes to sales, right, there really isn't that and you see you have to have sort of this hodgepodge. So where I was not finding the information, I'm trying to distill that information and share it with others. Most sales coaching that I've experienced is more on the tactical level. How do you open doors, right? What's creative outreach to get people to pay attention to you, you know? one very valuable element, but it's not the whole goal, right? When every seller raises their hand says, well, this is great, but what I ultimately want to do is become my own business owner. How do I close the biggest deal of my career, right? Or how do I earn a certain income? All great things, but what I wanted to ⁓ up and bring together was how do you specifically think about where you are today? and where you want to go and accelerate that timeline. So long story short is we got to do a lot of zooming out before we zoom in. there's a lot of diagnosing that happens. you try find like coordinates of where you are on a map. And so that's what I try to bring to the table is this clarity on where they might be. And I think of it across three broad phases. call it level one, level two and level three, right? So it's very simple to understand. Level one is when you're typically starting out in your career, you're trading effort to gain skills, right? And ⁓ those skills to claw back more of your calendar so that you can get into level two, which is when you own more of your calendar, you can start to apply your skills, get recognition, earn income. asymmetric income, but avoid traps of not over inflating your lifestyle so that success doesn't become the trap at that level. That helps you to then start to break free to this third phase, the the evolved phase, where you can evolve into whatever you want. But the idea is you now own fully own your calendar, right, which as you point out, won't come without its challenges, right? We're not trying to escape and and sip pina coladas on the beach. This isn't the fire movement where you retire early and do nothing. you at least give yourself that choice. But it's it's more about I call it fine. Financial independence next endeavor, but that next endeavor should be yours, where you have complete ownership, ⁓ develop assets, and you're like a little VC, you're your own venture capitalists, where your portfolio
Dan Pascone: Ooh, I like that.
Brandon Fluharty: starts to become multiple income streams that you can start to control. You don't have to go out, ask the markets for money. You don't have to build the next big startup, right? Because in the age of where we are with the ⁓ and development of AI, as you know, as a solopreneur, as an individual, you can do a lot, right? And still the results of a small startup. So we're in just a completely different era and I try to make the case that that is possible. But you have to sort of start now and documenting whether you're in level one, level two, what starts to make you unique and identify when people start asking you, how did you close that deal? Document those things, share those things and those will start to add up and compound over time just as you would invest in the Mag-7. and hope to gain a return over years, you're investing in yourself, right, in a career in sales that gives us volatility out of the gates, right? And we have to figure out how to manage that volatility. That is the best gift in the corporate world that then you can leverage to say, well, I don't have to be in the corporate world till I'm 65, 67, or even till I'm 50. I can start figuring this out in a really thoughtful, intentional way, and then start cashing that out. And then it becomes my choice to when I fully own my calendar. And I think that's the key. It should be your choice, not the choice of an employer who says, okay, it's time to get rid of 4,000 employees because we're making a big bet on AI. You're no longer worthy. I don't really care how well you've performed over the past few years. This just doesn't fit in with us or shareholders. That's not your option, right? Your option will be leave on a high note and then go pursue what you want to do without any financial pressure.
Dan Pascone: Great points. ⁓ a little bit into AI and the impact on the knowledge worker, sort of the corporate knowledge worker on one side, and then maybe the opportunities it presents to the solo or the small business entrepreneur.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, nobody knows the future, right? There's every head every AI lab is kind of right, it's Dario Amadei at Anthropic who might be taking a bit of more of a stance that has moral compass to it, ⁓ right? And then other that are just like, no, we got to move fast, ⁓ you know, get out of our way, let's just build it and see what happens. And then everybody else sort of in between trying to figure it all out is this dystopia ⁓ that about to face or is it utopia or ⁓ is just another tech fad? So I will say that I do deeply believe because I was ahead of the curve of selling conversational AI. to Fortune 500 companies like the likes of Delta and United Healthcare and Chipotle. These weren't just people buying chat bots, they were transforming pieces of their business. And so were talking about AI agents in 2018, right? Four years before the chat GBT moment. And so again, I was very fortunate to be in that position and sort of see what was gonna happen. do think things are going to be coming fast and going to be those who are complacent, who just this off as, this is like the internet or this is just like the industrial age or this is just like the steam engine or this is just like electricity or this is just like social media. When we say very general statements, this is just like...
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: I think that can be dangerous territory because what that doesn't allow us to do is prepare. when something is moving so quickly without guardrails, that's a dangerous territory to be in because the trends ⁓ are are off ⁓ at an exodus. am seeing good sellers pressured who were once getting coming to them on a weekly basis. They could just count on it, right? If I wasn't a performer, I knew I could always get a new role. That's starting to shrink. And so what's happening in is the classic K-shaped economy that we hear about from analysts ⁓ starting to ⁓ to fruition. know, who have invested in AI or had the ability to invest in tech stocks are doing really well right now. those who are just sort of grinding paycheck to paycheck, on the lower piece of the ⁓ keg going and the middle is being hollowed out. And the same thing is happening with middle performers that who could rely on a recruiter contacting them. Maybe they didn't perform well in sales, but they could just go negotiate. a slightly higher base, they could sell themselves into a new sales role and then try to figure it out maybe in 18 months, 24 months, they go and leave and do it all over again. That is going away. so what we are entering is hyper competitiveness where those who are embracing AI, figuring out the hard stuff, trying to not necessarily vibe code, but at least like ⁓ Claude Cowork and and trying to figure out portions of their workflow that can be enhanced with AI, they're going to put themselves in an elite category that continues to make them valuable over time. And then, like I said, you give yourself a choice where you are, companies are absolutely going to get leaner, right? That's been the maxim for corporate ⁓ for as long as we know it, right? We want to do more with less. not gonna go away. Where positions might change, get will absolutely change, right? Because if you can get AI to take 50 questions off of your hundreds, you know, a list of a hundred questions that you have, well, you don't just get 50 questions off your plate, you actually produce 50 more new questions that could arise.
Dan Pascone: Right.
Brandon Fluharty: And so that will be a special place, but the people who are figuring out will start to become even more elite in what they do. Right. And, and so that's why, again, it's like, feel very privileged because I've worked with like the Navy SEALs, the top professionals selling who are doing this right now. And they're putting themselves in a position where they're actually increasing value ⁓ AI gets you know, release because they're the ones who are using it to the benefit of the clients using it to the benefit of being able to close more with less, Higher quotas are going to always be thrust upon them, but they're meeting it right without hiring anybody under them. But who they are hiring is, is, is AI and those people will continue to become more valuable.
Dan Pascone: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Fluharty: And then the switch is when you start to take that value, move it out of the hands of one single employers, one single infrastructure, and you start creating the infrastructure for yourself, that's where you have unlimited options that you can deliver to yourself. And that's the autonomy that I want every top performer to start architecting for themselves.
Dan Pascone: I love it. All let's shift gears a little bit. I wanna talk a little bit about your personal journey to get here and then we're gonna get to know you a little bit more. I know you've got an interesting background. Share with us, ⁓ you ⁓ the where you met with your CPA, which I love that you brought that up, given that it's. We're recording this on April 14th, so tax day is tomorrow. So it's top of mind for a lot of folks, so that'll be an interesting piece of this discussion. But talk a little bit about other inflection points that you've had throughout your career that led you to where you're at today. And then to the degree you're willing, tell us a little bit about your own personal money story, and it's led you to how you architect your own business, but then also advise others.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about happening into sales. And that's how most of us get into sales. It's changing a little bit, right? But, you know, as we were kind of coming up through the workforce, right, sales was not necessarily sort of a sought after role. Still had a stigma to it. Oh, the used car salesman. Right. And there's still a little bit of that. But starting to see more and more people coming out of college, taking on sales as a deliberate role. So that's nice to see. But most of us, probably most listening who are in sales, they happened into it like us. And what I did discover, right, through that journey is there is no linear path to success in sales. ⁓ And am My ultimate case for that, I actually dropped out of college. so it didn't even have a college degree, let alone an MBA where when I got into strategic accounts ⁓ I was working with these fortune in the case of United healthcare, fortune 10 level brand, was sitting across from their CEO at the time, talking how do we personalize healthcare like a Spotify playlist, right?
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: through the use of conversational AI. I felt very uncomfortable because here I am, somebody without a college degree and the likes of a Fortune 10 company, they're used to working with a Deloitte, an Accenture type of consultant on that kind of vision. And here I was in the room. So, okay, it's not credentials that got me there. Another thing, right, ⁓ that early in adulthood was ties into my financial journey is I got myself into a lot of personal debt. And at 28, I had to file for chapter seven bankruptcy. And that stung, right then. And so it wasn't like getting money out of the gate, certainly wasn't handed any money. And it certainly, you know, took a long time to rebuild that credit. So it wasn't credential is it wasn't being handed money, it wasn't having money. And if anything, that bankruptcy taught me how to go back to strong fundamentals and do that. an introvert and suffer social anxiety and in sales, that's a weird combo, at least perceptionally. A lot people think you've got to be a schmoozer. You've got to be an extrovert. It's all about the relationships.
Dan Pascone: Sure.
Brandon Fluharty: And that wasn't the case for me as well. It was actually my introversion using that as a strength to be a deep thinker and a strategist. think that started to really play out well as I climbed the ranks and got into enterprise and strategic accounts where that is more valuable than say at the transactional level. So it wasn't my personality. It wasn't charisma. It wasn't anything. So it's not credentials. It's not having a lot of money.
Dan Pascone: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Fluharty: It wasn't high degree of confidence or personality. What was it? purposeful. That's again why I'm intentional about calling what I put out there to the world, the purposeful performer, because that was something that helped me throughout my entire journey. Level one, level two, and now level three. Being highly intentional, being thoughtful, zooming out, pondering the bigger picture so that I could sort of leverage right resources and really the ⁓ that we're dealing with, that all of us deal with, our time, our energy, our attention, and then to some degree money, right? And that forms a team, right? That when you're consistent and intentional about applying your team, pointing it in the right direction, with the right type of mission and vision and ⁓ purpose you for yourself personally, Well, you can put your team in the right direction. And so that's really kind of what helped me, right? You know, battling imposter syndrome, battling confidence issue, battling, you know, having panic attacks in front of a big client ⁓ through social anxiety and not taking care of my wellbeing. These were that started to become not barriers, but ⁓ instruments. another point that should have been a wake up call was I landed in the hospital, when I was 32 due to an idiopathic stroke, idiopathic, meaning there was no known cause for it. and the wake up call should have happened there was instead of being concerned about my health or my wife who was scared next to my side. my first thought was, ⁓ like work.
Dan Pascone: Yeah. Right.
Brandon Fluharty: I, what am I going to tell my boss? ⁓ I've got this big deal, this big meeting coming up. So I was typing furiously away on my Blackberry to say, you're like, we got to be prepared for this big deal. don't want to lose it. And that, that was just like, I didn't know it at the time, but reflecting back, that should have been the wake up call of this identity ⁓ of who is sort of like an insecure overachiever. I tied my worth to other people's rules, which was my identity as somebody who hustles hard, who grinds, who can get it done, sacrifices work for their life. And I thought those were badges of honor, but ultimately, know, they're not. And so again, what I'm trying to distill to others through my journey is you're going to get these wake up calls, listen to them, listen to the signals. You don't have to go through stroke, you don't have to go through a bankroll. You don't have to suffer through the attacks in front of clients. You can be intentional through daily practice, through developing something I call a purposeful operating system to kind of work through, gain clarity, gain confidence, and start operating more like a Shaolin monk, a SEAL, ⁓ a
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: professional athlete at the highest level of their craft. And then go and say, when I'm done with that, I can go turn it in for complete freedom on my terms and deliver the type of impact that I want and follow this inner voice that is now my voice, not these other voices that have crowded my ⁓ ⁓ me I should be this or that.
Dan Pascone: Mm-hmm. Really powerful stuff. All right. I'm going to ask you a question that I ask every guest, but based on the information you just shared, I'm actually going to ask you to break it into three categories. I think it'll be super interesting to hear from you three categories. So the question is, you've heard it before. what's the lessons you would tell a younger self, right? ⁓ and I want you to break it into business, finance and life. So what are the, What's the business advice you'd give to your younger self? What's the finance advice and what's the life advice?
Brandon Fluharty: kind of cheat a little bit, because I think there's one piece of advice that floats across all three. then I'll try to answer ⁓ of each of them separately. But where you are now doesn't dictate where you will be in the future. So economically, that's true. In business, that is true. And in life, that is true. So if were to go back to my younger self having that panic attack in a bankruptcy,
Dan Pascone: Okay. Sure.
Brandon Fluharty: right, self-doubting if sales was right for me, all those things, I would go back and say, where you are now doesn't determine where you will be. And that lifts you out of the fog of now into the clarity above the clouds of what can be. And when you're operating from that high vantage point, right, with clarity, you then can go back below the clouds and start taking control. And it starts to become small things. So small things in the business world. helped me in my particular business, I now operate what I consider a content to commerce business. ⁓ create content. I don't actively sell anymore. I'm not ⁓ out to anybody, not trying to create outreach sequences. I write content specifically ⁓ LinkedIn, right? Where my professional network is. That's how you found me and we're having this conversation. ⁓ I didn't reach out to you to try to get this so that I could sell something. We connected organically and that's where all business opportunities happen for me now. So I create content and that creates commerce for me that funds my life and I just have fun with it. ⁓ enjoyable. I'm not trying to build a sales coaching empire where it's got to be $3 million a year or I'm not worthy. That was the level two game. That was the more game. I played the enough game now.
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: And so for me, right on the business side, just doing something small. What about just writing on LinkedIn every day? Not caring if it's going to get a hundred likes or not. Just write on LinkedIn, my thoughts, my voices, the way I sell, the way I approached a deal, the way I want to deal the setbacks, stroke. And I did that. And that put me in this seat today. So if you want to be a creator and monetize that intellectual property up in your head through the knowledge and the specialized knowledge that you're putting out in the world that sales trained you for right on LinkedIn every day. From a financial standpoint, it's the same thing. Start small. You know, it's tempting to be like a day trader ⁓ go on Kalshi or Coinbase and start betting on things. Do you want to be ⁓ trader or a, you know,
Dan Pascone: you
Brandon Fluharty: a gambler or or do you want to build real assets and wealth? Why not just take a portion of your income put it in something simple like a stash stash where you can get micro shares and not even think about pay a very small subscription fee, not a financial fee each time you're investing in something. And before you know it, like if you're investing the portion of your income week or with every paycheck, man, that stuff will compound work in your favor. In life, it's just my wife and I, unfortunately, we lost her son at six and a half weeks. So ⁓ I try make sure that I do something small for her every day. I've got a stack of love notes. ⁓ I have it into my purposeful operating system. Every day, write her a little love note. Something small, it compounds, but I just try to... make her feel special with that small note. So small things can compound. Where you are today doesn't dictate where you will be tomorrow. These things apply in business, life, and finances.
Dan Pascone: Well said, man, that was powerful. All right, really quick, because I know we're running short on time, but I know you're working on a book, and I definitely want to have you back on when that's out there. But tell us just the concept, what made you want to write it, what you're looking to accomplish.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah, I've always been a writer. This is my preferred medium of communicating, say over video. Others love to get on video and maybe I'll add video to my repertoire, but I just love writing. And always been a dream of mine. So that's been one thing. But I also think a book is something special, right? It exists off of like the internet and into something.
Dan Pascone: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Fluharty: I was just thinking about this last night reading a book while I was in bed. was like, wow, this is kind of special. I am interacting with somebody that they put their heart and soul into that now I have in my hands. And I thought that was pretty special. It's a different dynamic than what we experience on, say, the web and communities. So having something that's physical and tangible that somebody can actually draw value from. ⁓ That is a gift I want to give to others. the book is called Autonomy Architecture, How to Build a Career that No Employer Can Touch. A lot of it's ⁓ lot of the framing that we discussed in this session, which is how to purposefully intentionally use your sales career to architect your path to freedom. And you can do that ahead of schedule. You don't have to stay in the corporate world until you're 65. And you also don't have to be a gung-ho content creator who looks flashy on Instagram or go gung-ho into building a startup and ⁓ millions of dollars to build the next big AI native company. You don't have to be any of those things. You can just simply own your calendar and evolve to defining what enough is and impacting the world that you know you can impact through your specialized knowledge. I would love for as ⁓ performance-based knowledge workers or sellers ⁓ be able to do that. And that's what this book aims to do.
Dan Pascone: Very cool, very cool. I look forward to hearing more about it, eventually reading it, and I know that's not a small endeavor. So ⁓ congratulations on taking it on, and best of luck as you continue with the process. And then last one, Brandon, if our listeners want to connect with you, collaborate with you, you mentioned LinkedIn, but any other places that folks should check you out?
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Follow me on LinkedIn. And I post daily there. So if you click the bell and you get all posts, ⁓ that'll sure you get everything in your feed. And then the platform that I'm building on, it's called the Purposeful Performer. So it's just purposefulperformer.com. And you take an assessment ⁓ and get ⁓ on where are. And then that will help kind of walk you through where you could potentially work with me to sort of take your career to the next level and architect that autonomy that we talked about.
Dan Pascone: Super cool, super cool. Dude, thanks so much for coming on. This was a lot of fun. Appreciate you sharing your insights. That's it for the episode. You can find the podcast along with our newsletter and YouTube channel all for free at makingsenseofyourmoney.com. And as always, prioritize your version of a rich life. Thanks, Brandon. Cheers.
Brandon Fluharty: Thanks, Dan. Appreciate it. Cheers.
Brandon Fluharty: Hey Dan, thanks for having me, man. Really appreciate it.
Dan Pascone: You bet, you bet. So I have a lot that I wanna get into, so let's get right into it. If you don't mind, share with the audience a little bit of your background, and I know you've got a very, very interesting story, which I'm excited to unpack a bit, but tell us about your background and then what's led you to what you're doing today. and the frameworks that he uses to help sellers build income, freedom, and future optionality. This one's all about designing your career before it designs you. So before we dive in, make sure you're subscribed on your favorite platform. And if you find the show valuable, I'd really appreciate you leaving a quick review. Thanks so much and enjoy.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah, so growing up, I was an aspiring soccer player, tried my luck in Europe, unfortunately didn't didn't work out. I I found that my ambition far exceeded my actual talent. And I was quickly discovered when I was with a European professional team, ⁓ unfortunately into some injury issues. But that background was well suited the business world. didn't quite know it at the time, but ⁓ I eventually happened sales.
Dan Pascone: There you go.
Brandon Fluharty: I was in sales for about 17 years total throughout my corporate career. And I was an individual contributor throughout all of that, mostly by choice. I've been asked to be a leader many times, but I really prized freedom and autonomy. So I stayed in an individual contributor role ⁓ and climbed the from sales all the way into strategic accounts. in that last period, I was with a conversational AI company. In the last four years, I made more ⁓ those four years than my 13 years prior in sales. And always had ambitions beyond the corporate world to do my own thing, even if I didn't know what it was. And ⁓ that buffer, inflating my lifestyle during that really strong run as a strategic account seller allowed me to fund that and that's the phase I'm in now and I'm writing a book now. I call this phase of my life the evolve phase where I can sort of dictate the terms, what clients I work with, which are other individual contributors and sales, helping to pull them through and do something very similar to what I've done. And yeah, that's the world I live in now.
Dan Pascone: Very cool, I love it. So I have a sales background as well as many of our audience know, and I love the term, I happened into sales. That's how we all get into it, we all happen into sales, right? So I like that term. All right, so that's great. So tell us a little bit about what the business looks like today, who you serve, and ultimately what you're helping them to do.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so classic solopreneur, who's been ⁓ influential ⁓ that journey myself is maybe ⁓ many your audience knows him, Justin Welsh. Justin Welsh was somebody, yeah. ⁓
Dan Pascone: You're like the Justin Walsh of sales for me. That's the way I, that's what I was gonna say to you, but go ahead, you finish your thought.
Brandon Fluharty: I really appreciate that. And that's a high compliment to me because he was somebody who was instrumental, very similar background in that he was also in sales, mostly in medical sales as an individual contributor and then kind of climbed the ranks to a CRO at a hot startup. But he left the corporate world circa around 2018, 2019. And so he was always a few years ahead of me, but somebody that I respected and aspire to Can you be a one person business, sort of creating these outsized results, whether it be income or the impact you make on others, while still holding true to the life that you wanna lead? a good partner, ⁓ a good husband, being a good human ⁓ in and ⁓ explore curiosities. So that's really kind of what my business. is right now. And again, I'm fortunate that I was able to have a successful career in sales. And then really kind of use the earnings from that by not inflating my lifestyle, kind of giving myself almost a runway to step into this stage of life where I don't feel pressure like other maybe whether you're a content creator or solopreneur or even an entrepreneur. ⁓ maybe an earlier phase in life, if you didn't have the luxury of having a strong corporate background or corporate sales background that gave you high income, well, you're just sort of stepping into something with high stress and you're working around the clock to figure it out. And so I want it to be very deliberate and purposeful. I call, you know, this little media empire that I'm building on a very small scale. It's called the purposeful performer. So
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: The idea around it is be really intentional, specifically if you are in sales, you have great leverage, it's one of the best corporate roles to create those outsize asymmetric results that then you can cash in and say, all right, now it's time to completely redesign rules around the life that I wanna live, the business that I wanna create, the impact that I wanna create. Now I'm going to go do it and pull through. And so it starts to become a job that you're really good at with rules that were written by others to ⁓ you evolve and graduate to a space where you start designing the rules, which is not easy, but you start to get clearer and this work starts to feel like a calling, not to get too philosophical there, but that's kind of the idea. And that's what I do. I work with a handful of select enterprise and strategic individual contributors who are in sales, helping them to model this out and rethink their sales career as a launch pad, not an in destination to stay within. And especially as AI is putting pressure on the knowledge economy, that a good strategic or enterprise seller is going to be completely disrupted out of the role anytime soon, but it's coming for every knowledge worker. And so being conscious about that and being purposeful with your performance is a great way to sort of use your sales career as this launch pad to go do something that's probably calling at most sellers anyways, as it probably called you, right? We're kind of entrepreneurial at heart and then until we can kind of build that entrepreneurial brain,
Dan Pascone: Yep.
Brandon Fluharty: We're sort of stuck working for somebody else in perpetuity.
Dan Pascone: Yeah, that's really well said. I wanna put a pin in the pressure that's on today's knowledge worker, because I think that's a fascinating topic and I've read some of your content around that. But let's talk about making that shift from the corporate world to being your own boss and whatever that looks like. And I've done it and frankly, I faced a lot of those pressures that you reference. And I always tell people, entrepreneur thing is an addiction to some degree, but it ain't for everybody, for sure. But. I also talk with a lot of clients about this concept that I call hybrid retirement, which is the concept of transitioning from the grind of a daily corporate career and moving on later in your career into something that's more purposeful. that's more flexible, that's work that you really enjoy doing on your own terms. So you've got kind of these two different things that are weighing against you. Yeah, the latter sounds amazing, but having been someone that's gone through it to some extent, it's not always easy to get there. So how do you help the enterprise sellers that you work with make that transition from, a higher earning professional to I'm sort of writing my own script?
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah, man. Like, that's what lights me up. ⁓ ⁓ not a one and done. And the first thing that I get across to clients who are interested in this is one, they have a bit of that urge. And so it might be an inner voice, sort of at them saying, yeah, this is great. And it's great to be recognized, ⁓ get to Club, have the high earnings. But is this it? Is there something more? ⁓ those are the folks that I work with on a ⁓ basis. And we do a lot of coaching. We do a lot of asynchronous work back and forth, kind giving them some models and frameworks ⁓ to through because it's definitely a very personal journey. And it really starts with like an inner journey. Not so in a spiritual sense, but an inner journey in just clarifying like what it is that you really want and what it is that makes you unique and special and a high performer in a role. And I guess the best way that I can describe it that I sort of translate to my work with clients is I discovered this like the most unexpected places. It was actually, and you could probably appreciate this, it was when I was sitting down with my accountant and up to like for pretty much my whole career, my professional career. I'd been working with an accountant who had basic requirements year and ⁓ she was great. I would usually get actually a ⁓ It was always nice. But one year, right? When I went, and it was like ⁓ one after getting into strategic accounts, my income went through the roof. It was like a seven and a half X. ⁓ increase, I went from like 215 K, the, know, year one is a strategic account seller to 1.5 million W two ⁓ in two. And ⁓ we're and talking in the fall for getting ready, because I was warned, get ready for a big hefty tax bill. I reached out to Liz, and she was like, is beyond my purview. So she pulled in the managing partner and the managing partner also pulled in somebody the family home office and like just kind of, you know, for high net worth earners, a space that like ⁓ really new to But the bottom line, we were just sort of sitting around, you know, what are some tax advantage plays that we can make by the end of that year, but also The more poignant question that this person asked me, David, he asked, hey, if you're that good for somebody else, imagine what you could do on your own. Because as you know, right, tax laws favor entrepreneurs, right, builders, business owners. And again, it was something that I had always wanted to do. I just didn't know what that thing that I was going to do was going to be. But that question kept gnawing at me. And it produce a plan right away. It gnawing at me for months, even years. But that question, ⁓ if that good for somebody else, imagine what you could do on your own, did lead me to like ⁓ staying for three years, I was like top earner. And that tax burden started to really clarify a of things, which was
Dan Pascone: Okay.
Brandon Fluharty: Hey, know, there, the success here could be a trap. And there were other things that we were starting to do, like when the income started to increase, we were looking at the bigger home, I was thinking about that Porsche 911 that was always sort of a childhood dream. And these things became reality. But when it's having conversations with people who had my best interests, my family, financial advisors, and an accountant,
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: we could really start talking through those things, it all kept pointing back to what do I really prize freedom, autonomy. And so if I were to lock myself into the bigger mortgage, ⁓ know, the, the upgrades inflating my lifestyle, that freedom would have dissipated and I would have continued to have to grind it out. Being a top performer year over year for multiple years. And that type of stuff is not in my control. Right. And so anyways, That was an eye-opening moment. That question was a clarifying question that now I ask of my clients, hey, is success potentially the trap here? could you, if this successful for somebody else, imagine what you could do on your own. And exploring that question on an basis starts to clarify the things that they can start doing on an external basis, writing on LinkedIn, building the personal brand. consulting, coaching, fractional work. It leads to infinite options. And that's the idea, create new options for yourself.
Dan Pascone: Yeah, that's really well said. I I say it all the time that the tax code is written for business owners. you really start to see that as you progress. But to your point, if the lifestyle just inflates with your income and the corporate role, you become essentially a slave to that corporate role, right? Because you give away that optionality. So I think those are some really important points. Okay, so let's hone in on now, you're working with people that are just like what you once were, right?
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah. salute. Yeah.
Dan Pascone: ⁓ of looking to make that transition, which as we mentioned a couple times already is not an easy one to make. What does that work look like? Is it a combination of helping them to succeed financially in their current role while also building what's next for them and then sort of like layering in a little bit of like financial nuance and some education there? What does that overall look like as far as the here in the now? for someone that's still in the corporate role versus what they'd like to ultimately progress to.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah, so every person that I've asked, whether it's one on one coaching, whether it's through an email to 7000 subscribers, whether it's speaking at an event with hundreds of sellers there, when I asked the question, do you want to work in sales, you know, for the rest of your career, nobody raises their hand. But when I asked them, do you want to do your own thing? Do you want to run your own business? Everybody raises their their hand. But getting there, right, is fuzzy. wants to be their own boss, but it's like, how do you do it? So we work in, I really try to think about thinking in terms like design thinking and systems thinking so that you can take some of the emotion out of typically emotional decisions. and try to distill like universal principles frameworks that ⁓ applicable. And my experience, right, ⁓ as beneficial was, right, financial advisors, ⁓ very parts of like your coaching staff. I think like the clients that I work with are like specialists in some they're like Navy SEALs, they're like the professional athletes, they're the artists of the business world. you know, ⁓ no performer, ⁓ right? ⁓ business, military, whatever is, right? Doesn't have like a support system or coaching staff. So you need your financial advisor, you need a good CPA. You need like on the tactical side, you need somebody like even on like the health side, right? And so
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: you have all these these forces, but when it comes to sales, right, there really isn't that and you see you have to have sort of this hodgepodge. So where I was not finding the information, I'm trying to distill that information and share it with others. Most sales coaching that I've experienced is more on the tactical level. How do you open doors, right? What's creative outreach to get people to pay attention to you, you know? one very valuable element, but it's not the whole goal, right? When every seller raises their hand says, well, this is great, but what I ultimately want to do is become my own business owner. How do I close the biggest deal of my career, right? Or how do I earn a certain income? All great things, but what I wanted to ⁓ up and bring together was how do you specifically think about where you are today? and where you want to go and accelerate that timeline. So long story short is we got to do a lot of zooming out before we zoom in. there's a lot of diagnosing that happens. you try find like coordinates of where you are on a map. And so that's what I try to bring to the table is this clarity on where they might be. And I think of it across three broad phases. call it level one, level two and level three, right? So it's very simple to understand. Level one is when you're typically starting out in your career, you're trading effort to gain skills, right? And ⁓ those skills to claw back more of your calendar so that you can get into level two, which is when you own more of your calendar, you can start to apply your skills, get recognition, earn income. asymmetric income, but avoid traps of not over inflating your lifestyle so that success doesn't become the trap at that level. That helps you to then start to break free to this third phase, the the evolved phase, where you can evolve into whatever you want. But the idea is you now own fully own your calendar, right, which as you point out, won't come without its challenges, right? We're not trying to escape and and sip pina coladas on the beach. This isn't the fire movement where you retire early and do nothing. you at least give yourself that choice. But it's it's more about I call it fine. Financial independence next endeavor, but that next endeavor should be yours, where you have complete ownership, ⁓ develop assets, and you're like a little VC, you're your own venture capitalists, where your portfolio
Dan Pascone: Ooh, I like that.
Brandon Fluharty: starts to become multiple income streams that you can start to control. You don't have to go out, ask the markets for money. You don't have to build the next big startup, right? Because in the age of where we are with the ⁓ and development of AI, as you know, as a solopreneur, as an individual, you can do a lot, right? And still the results of a small startup. So we're in just a completely different era and I try to make the case that that is possible. But you have to sort of start now and documenting whether you're in level one, level two, what starts to make you unique and identify when people start asking you, how did you close that deal? Document those things, share those things and those will start to add up and compound over time just as you would invest in the Mag-7. and hope to gain a return over years, you're investing in yourself, right, in a career in sales that gives us volatility out of the gates, right? And we have to figure out how to manage that volatility. That is the best gift in the corporate world that then you can leverage to say, well, I don't have to be in the corporate world till I'm 65, 67, or even till I'm 50. I can start figuring this out in a really thoughtful, intentional way, and then start cashing that out. And then it becomes my choice to when I fully own my calendar. And I think that's the key. It should be your choice, not the choice of an employer who says, okay, it's time to get rid of 4,000 employees because we're making a big bet on AI. You're no longer worthy. I don't really care how well you've performed over the past few years. This just doesn't fit in with us or shareholders. That's not your option, right? Your option will be leave on a high note and then go pursue what you want to do without any financial pressure.
Dan Pascone: Great points. ⁓ a little bit into AI and the impact on the knowledge worker, sort of the corporate knowledge worker on one side, and then maybe the opportunities it presents to the solo or the small business entrepreneur.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, nobody knows the future, right? There's every head every AI lab is kind of right, it's Dario Amadei at Anthropic who might be taking a bit of more of a stance that has moral compass to it, ⁓ right? And then other that are just like, no, we got to move fast, ⁓ you know, get out of our way, let's just build it and see what happens. And then everybody else sort of in between trying to figure it all out is this dystopia ⁓ that about to face or is it utopia or ⁓ is just another tech fad? So I will say that I do deeply believe because I was ahead of the curve of selling conversational AI. to Fortune 500 companies like the likes of Delta and United Healthcare and Chipotle. These weren't just people buying chat bots, they were transforming pieces of their business. And so were talking about AI agents in 2018, right? Four years before the chat GBT moment. And so again, I was very fortunate to be in that position and sort of see what was gonna happen. do think things are going to be coming fast and going to be those who are complacent, who just this off as, this is like the internet or this is just like the industrial age or this is just like the steam engine or this is just like electricity or this is just like social media. When we say very general statements, this is just like...
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: I think that can be dangerous territory because what that doesn't allow us to do is prepare. when something is moving so quickly without guardrails, that's a dangerous territory to be in because the trends ⁓ are are off ⁓ at an exodus. am seeing good sellers pressured who were once getting coming to them on a weekly basis. They could just count on it, right? If I wasn't a performer, I knew I could always get a new role. That's starting to shrink. And so what's happening in is the classic K-shaped economy that we hear about from analysts ⁓ starting to ⁓ to fruition. know, who have invested in AI or had the ability to invest in tech stocks are doing really well right now. those who are just sort of grinding paycheck to paycheck, on the lower piece of the ⁓ keg going and the middle is being hollowed out. And the same thing is happening with middle performers that who could rely on a recruiter contacting them. Maybe they didn't perform well in sales, but they could just go negotiate. a slightly higher base, they could sell themselves into a new sales role and then try to figure it out maybe in 18 months, 24 months, they go and leave and do it all over again. That is going away. so what we are entering is hyper competitiveness where those who are embracing AI, figuring out the hard stuff, trying to not necessarily vibe code, but at least like ⁓ Claude Cowork and and trying to figure out portions of their workflow that can be enhanced with AI, they're going to put themselves in an elite category that continues to make them valuable over time. And then, like I said, you give yourself a choice where you are, companies are absolutely going to get leaner, right? That's been the maxim for corporate ⁓ for as long as we know it, right? We want to do more with less. not gonna go away. Where positions might change, get will absolutely change, right? Because if you can get AI to take 50 questions off of your hundreds, you know, a list of a hundred questions that you have, well, you don't just get 50 questions off your plate, you actually produce 50 more new questions that could arise.
Dan Pascone: Right.
Brandon Fluharty: And so that will be a special place, but the people who are figuring out will start to become even more elite in what they do. Right. And, and so that's why, again, it's like, feel very privileged because I've worked with like the Navy SEALs, the top professionals selling who are doing this right now. And they're putting themselves in a position where they're actually increasing value ⁓ AI gets you know, release because they're the ones who are using it to the benefit of the clients using it to the benefit of being able to close more with less, Higher quotas are going to always be thrust upon them, but they're meeting it right without hiring anybody under them. But who they are hiring is, is, is AI and those people will continue to become more valuable.
Dan Pascone: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Fluharty: And then the switch is when you start to take that value, move it out of the hands of one single employers, one single infrastructure, and you start creating the infrastructure for yourself, that's where you have unlimited options that you can deliver to yourself. And that's the autonomy that I want every top performer to start architecting for themselves.
Dan Pascone: I love it. All let's shift gears a little bit. I wanna talk a little bit about your personal journey to get here and then we're gonna get to know you a little bit more. I know you've got an interesting background. Share with us, ⁓ you ⁓ the where you met with your CPA, which I love that you brought that up, given that it's. We're recording this on April 14th, so tax day is tomorrow. So it's top of mind for a lot of folks, so that'll be an interesting piece of this discussion. But talk a little bit about other inflection points that you've had throughout your career that led you to where you're at today. And then to the degree you're willing, tell us a little bit about your own personal money story, and it's led you to how you architect your own business, but then also advise others.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about happening into sales. And that's how most of us get into sales. It's changing a little bit, right? But, you know, as we were kind of coming up through the workforce, right, sales was not necessarily sort of a sought after role. Still had a stigma to it. Oh, the used car salesman. Right. And there's still a little bit of that. But starting to see more and more people coming out of college, taking on sales as a deliberate role. So that's nice to see. But most of us, probably most listening who are in sales, they happened into it like us. And what I did discover, right, through that journey is there is no linear path to success in sales. ⁓ And am My ultimate case for that, I actually dropped out of college. so it didn't even have a college degree, let alone an MBA where when I got into strategic accounts ⁓ I was working with these fortune in the case of United healthcare, fortune 10 level brand, was sitting across from their CEO at the time, talking how do we personalize healthcare like a Spotify playlist, right?
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: through the use of conversational AI. I felt very uncomfortable because here I am, somebody without a college degree and the likes of a Fortune 10 company, they're used to working with a Deloitte, an Accenture type of consultant on that kind of vision. And here I was in the room. So, okay, it's not credentials that got me there. Another thing, right, ⁓ that early in adulthood was ties into my financial journey is I got myself into a lot of personal debt. And at 28, I had to file for chapter seven bankruptcy. And that stung, right then. And so it wasn't like getting money out of the gate, certainly wasn't handed any money. And it certainly, you know, took a long time to rebuild that credit. So it wasn't credential is it wasn't being handed money, it wasn't having money. And if anything, that bankruptcy taught me how to go back to strong fundamentals and do that. an introvert and suffer social anxiety and in sales, that's a weird combo, at least perceptionally. A lot people think you've got to be a schmoozer. You've got to be an extrovert. It's all about the relationships.
Dan Pascone: Sure.
Brandon Fluharty: And that wasn't the case for me as well. It was actually my introversion using that as a strength to be a deep thinker and a strategist. think that started to really play out well as I climbed the ranks and got into enterprise and strategic accounts where that is more valuable than say at the transactional level. So it wasn't my personality. It wasn't charisma. It wasn't anything. So it's not credentials. It's not having a lot of money.
Dan Pascone: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Fluharty: It wasn't high degree of confidence or personality. What was it? purposeful. That's again why I'm intentional about calling what I put out there to the world, the purposeful performer, because that was something that helped me throughout my entire journey. Level one, level two, and now level three. Being highly intentional, being thoughtful, zooming out, pondering the bigger picture so that I could sort of leverage right resources and really the ⁓ that we're dealing with, that all of us deal with, our time, our energy, our attention, and then to some degree money, right? And that forms a team, right? That when you're consistent and intentional about applying your team, pointing it in the right direction, with the right type of mission and vision and ⁓ purpose you for yourself personally, Well, you can put your team in the right direction. And so that's really kind of what helped me, right? You know, battling imposter syndrome, battling confidence issue, battling, you know, having panic attacks in front of a big client ⁓ through social anxiety and not taking care of my wellbeing. These were that started to become not barriers, but ⁓ instruments. another point that should have been a wake up call was I landed in the hospital, when I was 32 due to an idiopathic stroke, idiopathic, meaning there was no known cause for it. and the wake up call should have happened there was instead of being concerned about my health or my wife who was scared next to my side. my first thought was, ⁓ like work.
Dan Pascone: Yeah. Right.
Brandon Fluharty: I, what am I going to tell my boss? ⁓ I've got this big deal, this big meeting coming up. So I was typing furiously away on my Blackberry to say, you're like, we got to be prepared for this big deal. don't want to lose it. And that, that was just like, I didn't know it at the time, but reflecting back, that should have been the wake up call of this identity ⁓ of who is sort of like an insecure overachiever. I tied my worth to other people's rules, which was my identity as somebody who hustles hard, who grinds, who can get it done, sacrifices work for their life. And I thought those were badges of honor, but ultimately, know, they're not. And so again, what I'm trying to distill to others through my journey is you're going to get these wake up calls, listen to them, listen to the signals. You don't have to go through stroke, you don't have to go through a bankroll. You don't have to suffer through the attacks in front of clients. You can be intentional through daily practice, through developing something I call a purposeful operating system to kind of work through, gain clarity, gain confidence, and start operating more like a Shaolin monk, a SEAL, ⁓ a
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: professional athlete at the highest level of their craft. And then go and say, when I'm done with that, I can go turn it in for complete freedom on my terms and deliver the type of impact that I want and follow this inner voice that is now my voice, not these other voices that have crowded my ⁓ ⁓ me I should be this or that.
Dan Pascone: Mm-hmm. Really powerful stuff. All right. I'm going to ask you a question that I ask every guest, but based on the information you just shared, I'm actually going to ask you to break it into three categories. I think it'll be super interesting to hear from you three categories. So the question is, you've heard it before. what's the lessons you would tell a younger self, right? ⁓ and I want you to break it into business, finance and life. So what are the, What's the business advice you'd give to your younger self? What's the finance advice and what's the life advice?
Brandon Fluharty: kind of cheat a little bit, because I think there's one piece of advice that floats across all three. then I'll try to answer ⁓ of each of them separately. But where you are now doesn't dictate where you will be in the future. So economically, that's true. In business, that is true. And in life, that is true. So if were to go back to my younger self having that panic attack in a bankruptcy,
Dan Pascone: Okay. Sure.
Brandon Fluharty: right, self-doubting if sales was right for me, all those things, I would go back and say, where you are now doesn't determine where you will be. And that lifts you out of the fog of now into the clarity above the clouds of what can be. And when you're operating from that high vantage point, right, with clarity, you then can go back below the clouds and start taking control. And it starts to become small things. So small things in the business world. helped me in my particular business, I now operate what I consider a content to commerce business. ⁓ create content. I don't actively sell anymore. I'm not ⁓ out to anybody, not trying to create outreach sequences. I write content specifically ⁓ LinkedIn, right? Where my professional network is. That's how you found me and we're having this conversation. ⁓ I didn't reach out to you to try to get this so that I could sell something. We connected organically and that's where all business opportunities happen for me now. So I create content and that creates commerce for me that funds my life and I just have fun with it. ⁓ enjoyable. I'm not trying to build a sales coaching empire where it's got to be $3 million a year or I'm not worthy. That was the level two game. That was the more game. I played the enough game now.
Dan Pascone: Yeah.
Brandon Fluharty: And so for me, right on the business side, just doing something small. What about just writing on LinkedIn every day? Not caring if it's going to get a hundred likes or not. Just write on LinkedIn, my thoughts, my voices, the way I sell, the way I approached a deal, the way I want to deal the setbacks, stroke. And I did that. And that put me in this seat today. So if you want to be a creator and monetize that intellectual property up in your head through the knowledge and the specialized knowledge that you're putting out in the world that sales trained you for right on LinkedIn every day. From a financial standpoint, it's the same thing. Start small. You know, it's tempting to be like a day trader ⁓ go on Kalshi or Coinbase and start betting on things. Do you want to be ⁓ trader or a, you know,
Dan Pascone: you
Brandon Fluharty: a gambler or or do you want to build real assets and wealth? Why not just take a portion of your income put it in something simple like a stash stash where you can get micro shares and not even think about pay a very small subscription fee, not a financial fee each time you're investing in something. And before you know it, like if you're investing the portion of your income week or with every paycheck, man, that stuff will compound work in your favor. In life, it's just my wife and I, unfortunately, we lost her son at six and a half weeks. So ⁓ I try make sure that I do something small for her every day. I've got a stack of love notes. ⁓ I have it into my purposeful operating system. Every day, write her a little love note. Something small, it compounds, but I just try to... make her feel special with that small note. So small things can compound. Where you are today doesn't dictate where you will be tomorrow. These things apply in business, life, and finances.
Dan Pascone: Well said, man, that was powerful. All right, really quick, because I know we're running short on time, but I know you're working on a book, and I definitely want to have you back on when that's out there. But tell us just the concept, what made you want to write it, what you're looking to accomplish.
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah, I've always been a writer. This is my preferred medium of communicating, say over video. Others love to get on video and maybe I'll add video to my repertoire, but I just love writing. And always been a dream of mine. So that's been one thing. But I also think a book is something special, right? It exists off of like the internet and into something.
Dan Pascone: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Fluharty: I was just thinking about this last night reading a book while I was in bed. was like, wow, this is kind of special. I am interacting with somebody that they put their heart and soul into that now I have in my hands. And I thought that was pretty special. It's a different dynamic than what we experience on, say, the web and communities. So having something that's physical and tangible that somebody can actually draw value from. ⁓ That is a gift I want to give to others. the book is called Autonomy Architecture, How to Build a Career that No Employer Can Touch. A lot of it's ⁓ lot of the framing that we discussed in this session, which is how to purposefully intentionally use your sales career to architect your path to freedom. And you can do that ahead of schedule. You don't have to stay in the corporate world until you're 65. And you also don't have to be a gung-ho content creator who looks flashy on Instagram or go gung-ho into building a startup and ⁓ millions of dollars to build the next big AI native company. You don't have to be any of those things. You can just simply own your calendar and evolve to defining what enough is and impacting the world that you know you can impact through your specialized knowledge. I would love for as ⁓ performance-based knowledge workers or sellers ⁓ be able to do that. And that's what this book aims to do.
Dan Pascone: Very cool, very cool. I look forward to hearing more about it, eventually reading it, and I know that's not a small endeavor. So ⁓ congratulations on taking it on, and best of luck as you continue with the process. And then last one, Brandon, if our listeners want to connect with you, collaborate with you, you mentioned LinkedIn, but any other places that folks should check you out?
Brandon Fluharty: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Follow me on LinkedIn. And I post daily there. So if you click the bell and you get all posts, ⁓ that'll sure you get everything in your feed. And then the platform that I'm building on, it's called the Purposeful Performer. So it's just purposefulperformer.com. And you take an assessment ⁓ and get ⁓ on where are. And then that will help kind of walk you through where you could potentially work with me to sort of take your career to the next level and architect that autonomy that we talked about.
Dan Pascone: Super cool, super cool. Dude, thanks so much for coming on. This was a lot of fun. Appreciate you sharing your insights. That's it for the episode. You can find the podcast along with our newsletter and YouTube channel all for free at makingsenseofyourmoney.com. And as always, prioritize your version of a rich life. Thanks, Brandon. Cheers.
Brandon Fluharty: Thanks, Dan. Appreciate it. Cheers.
