Trapped in Fulfillment? Why Scaling Starts with Radical Self-Leadership With Anthony Mink

If you're feeling stuck in fulfillment mode, overwhelmed by client demands, and unsure how to scale your agency without burning out—this episode is a must-listen.

In this episode of the Catalytic Leadership Podcast, I sit down with Anthony Mink, co-founder of the $50M+ brand Live Bearded and host of the Entitled to Nothing podcast. We dive into the mindset and leadership shifts necessary to break free from the chaos and step into scalable business growth. Anthony shares powerful lessons on radical responsibility, leadership development, team building, and what it takes to go from burnout to building a high-performance culture.

If you're a digital agency owner using tools like GoHighLevel, managing a small team, and trying to reduce churn while scaling to seven figures, this conversation will resonate. Discover what it really takes to scale your business without sacrificing your sanity—and why scaling starts with radical self-leadership.

Connect with Anthony Mink

To connect with Anthony Mink, visit AnthonyMink.com or follow him on Instagram at @AnthonyMink. If his story resonated with you and you're ready to build a business that reflects your values and vision, reach out directly—he's passionate about helping entrepreneurs scale through self-leadership and community.

Books Mentioned

• As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

Right now, you can get an extra 20% off your ticket for the Scale with Stability Summit with my exclusive code CATALYTIC20 at checkout.

Visit scalewithstability.com to grab your ticket—I hope to see you there!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Anthony Mink
• 2:51 Learning Leadership on the Basketball Court
• 6:49 Life Is My Fault Mentality
• 12:12 Analyzing Success and Failure
• 18:32 Determining Your Inner Circle
• 25:47 Birth of Live Bearded
• 33:30 Constant Growth as a Leader
• 36:17 Book Recommendations and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:37

I'm excited today to have Anthony Mink on the podcast. Anthony's an entrepreneur, a business strategist and a host of the Entitled to Nothing podcast. As the co-founder and CEO of Live Bearded, he's built an eight-figure e-commerce brand from the ground up, generating over 50 million dollars in sales, With a proven track record of starting and selling multiple businesses across diverse industries, Anthony has a wealth of business experience and a genuine love for the game of business, Having experienced both the highs of multi-million dollar successes and the lows of personal bankruptcy. Anthony's core belief is my life is my fault and I am entitled to nothing. This mindset of radical responsibility and personal accountability has empowered him to overcome intense adversity, to build a thriving business and to live life on his terms. Anthony, I'm so glad you're here.

Anthony Mink: 1:40

Thanks for being on the show man, it's so funny when you hear your quote bio being read. You know it kind of like makes me cringe a little bit. But it's exciting to be here and it's an honor. Man, I really appreciate you having me.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:53

Well, I've been looking forward to this. I think this is going to be a fantastic conversation.

Intro/Outro: 1:58

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 2:14

I would love to start with you sharing a bit of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Anthony Mink: 2:26

You know it's interesting. I think that I first learned the whole idea of leadership on the basketball court. You know, I grew up in a small town in Oregon. It's called Sweet Home. Believe it or not. I don't think there's a Sweet Home Alabama, but there is a Sweet Home Oregon and it probably looks and feels about the way that you would expect. There was about 6,000 people there, a couple of stoplights. But now I grew up out in the country and basketball was really my first love and that's where I had a really incredible coach through junior high and high school. That really showed me leadership starts by leading from the front. It's by taking action, leading yourself first, and some of those lessons that I learned back then on the basketball court it's amazing how they apply to life today.

Anthony Mink: 3:15

I remember my sophomore year. I made varsity and I was like every day I'm like coach, how am I doing? How am I doing? Where am I at? Like? At first it was. It was just I wanted to make the team and then me being the ambitious little guy I was, I was like I'm going to be a starter, you know. And so every day, hey, coach, how am I doing? What do I need to prove what's going on. And one day he's like, do you control how much I play you? I'm like, well, no, coach. He's like, do you have any control over what I decided to do? I'm like, no. He's like, what do you have control over? I'm like how hard I play, coach. And he's like then just go do that. And man, I remember it was like holy shit. There's only one thing I have control over and it's how I show up, and I think that's probably one of the most fundamental and one of the first leadership lessons I truly learned is like you only control yourself. That's where that entitled to nothing, radical responsibility comes from, and so I think to me that's what being a leader means. I think being a leader starts by leading yourself first. That's what being a leader means. I think being a leader starts by leading yourself first, and if you do that for long enough, you earn the privilege and the opportunity to then start to lead others, and that grows to the extent that your capacity to lead yourself grows. So that's kind of how I view it.

Anthony Mink: 4:38

But I grew up, like I said, humble beginnings.

Anthony Mink: 4:40

My dad cut trees down for a living, my mom was a stay-at-home mom and I didn't really have any idea that I was going to become a business leader or an entrepreneur.

Anthony Mink: 4:49

I just knew that I wanted to get out of sweet home and I wanted to see what the world had in store. And through a lot of failure and a lot of fate, I found myself getting involved in the business community and I've had, I feel like, like multiple different careers, multiple different ups and downs and kind of twists and turns, but ultimately, from a leadership perspective, every single time I failed, every single time I had a success or a setback. I, for whatever reason, had the ability to separate a little bit from it and analyze and reflect. And every time the failure was my fault and the success was not maybe a hundred percent my fault, but all but by the action that I took, by the responsibility, by the decisions that I made, and I just developed this some might say ruthless perspective of like, bro, your life is your fucking fault and um, and to me that's like true leadership. True leadership is taking ownership, taking accountability and then taking action.

Dr. William Attaway: 5:51

You know, a mentor of mine says that you have to learn to autopsy success the same way you autopsy failure, because if you don't know why it's working when it's working, you won't know how to fix it when it breaks. And I've always remembered that. It sounds like that's how you operate You're evaluating all the time what's working, what's not, and why. In both cases Would that be?

Anthony Mink: 6:11

accurate? I think it is. You know, and this is, we all have different gifts that we experience or create through different times or given, you know, maybe from a spiritual sense. And I'll tell you a story when I was four or five years old. So my dad was a really abusive alcoholic and I have this very vivid memory I don't know exactly how old I was, I was probably four or five but I went into the kitchen to get some food. My dad came in, my mom came in. They were screaming, cussing, yelling and I got scared and I remember I closed the fridge and I kind of curled up in the corner and I was like scared and my mom saw me as a mother. Her awareness went to me. She came over, she picked me up and she took me into my bedroom and I just remember we were in the bed, she was kind of holding me and I was crying and she was crying and she said Anthony, promise me two things Promise me you'll never treat women the way your dad treats me, and promise me you'll never act the way that he acts. So little baby. Anthony is like okay, mom, I promise.

Anthony Mink: 7:17

And in that moment my mom gave me one of the greatest gifts, because I started asking the question why? Why does my dad act this way, why does he say this, why does he do that and what must I not do? Because I promised not to be like him. And it created a situational awareness and an ability to reflect on my life that has served me very, very well and so my whole life. I was like why does this person do that and why did they say this and why does that happen?

Anthony Mink: 7:47

And then ultimately that turned into why do we do what we do? And that's where the foundation of all of my marketing success came from. My leadership capacity, my business success came from this idea of asking the question why? And then really seeking to understand it. So you're spot on by saying I think it is in our moments of reflection, both of the success and the failure, that the greatest lessons are given to us. And I think we would both agree that we typically learn a lot more from failure than we do from success. That's just because there's pain and failure and that drives us in a different way than the pleasure or the excitement of success. But by reflecting both of them, I think it's critical because when I think, actually the worst thing that can happen is you could be really successful and then not understand exactly what you did.

Anthony Mink: 8:37

That's almost as that. To me, that's worse than failing, because now you don't have something that's repeatable. That's right. So you know, I think, that Socrates said a life unexamined is not worth living, and I think that's right. All of the lessons that I've let me say this, like you said, personal bankruptcy I've been hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, multiple times from failed businesses and paying a lot of dumb tax, let's say, times from failed businesses and paying a lot of dumb tax, let's say. And the only way I've been able to turn all of those failures into successes is because I analyzed and I reflected and I took responsibility for my part, my mistakes, my bad decisions in there, and then I was able to turn failures into lessons. So probably the biggest leadership lesson I've learned by paying a lot of dumb tax and making a lot of mistakes is the ability to reflect on both good and bad results and extract lessons. That's ultimately what makes us stronger and smarter for the next, you know, the next swing at the plate, if you will.

Dr. William Attaway: 10:48

You know. I'm glad you shared that and I appreciate the transparency because I think a lot of people who look at you and look at your you know your presence online. They're looking at your highlight reel and so often we can look at somebody else's highlight reel and we can extrapolate ideas like oh well, yeah, but Anthony's never had to deal with what I deal with, he's never struggled like I struggle, his journey's just been up and to the right. If somebody's sitting across from you and they say something like that, what's your response?

Anthony Mink: 11:19

yeah, I think I mean it's a great question. What is the response? I think you, for me, you know I would just be vulnerable and share some of the mistakes that I made. You know, like this is maybe similar Once.

Anthony Mink: 11:31

One time I had someone from from some my my main company is called Live Bearded and you know we sell beard care products and men's care products to a bunch of guys and I had one of our customers reach out to me personally and he's like hey Anthony, my wife and I were talking about you and your company and we had a question. We have this belief that someone like you that creates this company and has the you know quote success comes from a very specific background where your parents taught you, or they helped you get started or all of these things. And he was like, both of our parents were addicts and and we grew up in a lot of abuse. And I just I wanted to ask you, what was your childhood like? Like what did you have a lot of abuse? And I just I wanted to ask you, what was your childhood like? Like what did you have a lot of support? And I was like man, like I'm really excited to tell you like your belief is bullshit, and I'm a living example of that. And so for me, I think that the vulnerability of our failures is one of the most powerful things we can share as leaders, because if you lead yourself and others well enough, you will develop some success and create some accolades, and then that makes people think that there is a gap between where you are and where they can be. They can be, and the gap can be closed metaphorically and in the belief, in our individual belief, by simply understanding the journey of someone.

Anthony Mink: 12:59

And there's been many times in my life where mentors that I looked up to I never heard them talk about the failures or the hard times or the struggle, and it made me feel like there was something wrong with me, like, fuck man, why is this so hard for me? Why am I struggling with this so much? And then I came across a couple of entrepreneurs that I really admire, and one of the reasons I really admire them is because they were so vulnerable about their insecurities and their failures, even though they run hundreds of millions and billion dollar companies as founders. They're like man, I feel like I haven't even gotten started yet. I feel like I've not created anything valuable.

Anthony Mink: 13:37

And I'm like, okay, if you're thinking that and I'm thinking that, then maybe this is just the mindset of an achiever. Maybe the mindset of the achiever is it doesn't matter, and I actually kind of languaged it for myself as the achiever's curse. And what I think the achiever's curse is is we don't know how far we can go until we've gone farther than we originally thought we might be able to. And the farther you go, the farther you realize you can't go, and so you're always expanding your belief of what's possible and what ends can't go, and so you're always expanding your belief of what's possible.

Anthony Mink: 14:13

And what ends up happening is you feel like you're farther away than where you want to be, and so there's this gap, and we tend to identify with that gap more than we identify with how far we've already come. And so for me, it wasn't until I heard the vulnerability of other entrepreneurs that were so much farther along than me that I started to feel like there wasn't anything wrong and that this was just part of the process. And so if I was talking to someone, if someone asked me that question, I would say you know, the greater the failure, the greater the triumph. I would explain some of my experiences, my bankruptcies, my losses, my failures, and then I would say that all of those are happening for us, so that we can develop the strength to go farther.

Dr. William Attaway: 14:59

That is so well said. You know, in building your business, I would imagine that there have been people around you who were cheering you on, and I would imagine there were people around you who were not, who maybe said you're shooting too high, you can't, you can't get there. First, has that been your experience? And second, how do you determine who is going to be in your circle? How do you determine who is going to be the voices that you listen to in your life?

Anthony Mink: 15:31

Man. That question is so powerful and, I think, arguably one of the most important questions in an entrepreneur or a leader, a man, woman. If we want to create something of our lives, the company that we keep, I think, is one of the biggest factors in that. And so, sitting down and being very intentional about it, you know it's very interesting. You asked the question because there hasn't been a lot of people that have told me that I can't do what I want to do, and the reason why that is is very simple Growing up, my dad told me how I was terrible at everything and I would never be good enough to do anything that I wanted to do.

Anthony Mink: 16:13

And I remember when I went bankrupt for the first time, my dad called me a miserable, fucking failure and told me how terrible I was. And oh, you think you're this big shot entrepreneur. You don't know what the fuck you're doing. Da, da, da, da, da da. And so because the one person that's supposed to be my confidant, my support system, my father, told me that I would never be able to do the things that I wanted to do. I never told anybody what I wanted. I never had the courage to proclaim this is what I'm gonna create. I just worked very, very hard in in, in the quiet, in the background. So Growing up early on, I had a lot of people telling me that I couldn't do what I wanted to do. You're not gonna be good enough to do that, you're not gonna be good enough to do this. The loudest voice was my dad, and that actually you know what, brother. It's crazy because I've never actually thought about this but I stopped telling people what my goals and dreams were, simply because I didn't want anybody to have the power to tell me it wasn't possible, like my dad did, and so they stopped calling my shot. You know the famous Babe Ruth like call your fuck, call it, yeah, that I would have. They would be shared with a very close group of people.

Anthony Mink: 17:44

And to answer the second question, which is like who do you decide who you want to be with, I think it changes over time. In the beginning, you just hang out with people that have a shared value or shared hobbies and interests, and that's kind of where it started. And then I developed a core group of guys and friends and as I became more involved in business and I started to have more and more success, and then your habits and your behaviors and how you spend your time starts to change. A lot of those previous or past relationships. They no longer become congruent, and so I would say the first thing is today I have to have a value and a vision alignment with someone. We don't have to value the exact same things in all areas of our life, but we need to have some core tenants that we really strive to live our life by. I'm a very principled person, so I'm only going to spend and invest time in someone that has the same principled stance. We're going to do the right thing. We're going to operate with honor and integrity. We're going to work our fucking asses off. One big one for me is I will only really develop deep relationships with someone that naturally wants to celebrate my wins more than I do.

Anthony Mink: 18:59

You know, if you've, if you've ever had a friend like that you go out with to dinner or or a show, or you go to the gym, you get a workout, whatever, and they're just like you know you're giving them an update and they're like wait, what you did? What, dude? That's amazing. I love that for you, like high five in, like, um, you know there's there's certain uh, uh, really good friendships that I have where you know we'll. We'll do a product launch and have a big day, like for for our black Friday sale. We did $530,000 in sales on the day and that was, you know, half a million dollars. In a day Like that blew my mind. My parents made $12,000 my entire senior year, you know. So, like the contrast and I took a screenshot, sent to a couple of my my best guy friends dude, this is crazy, check this out. They're celebrating, they're rooting me on, they're telling me how incredible I am.

Anthony Mink: 19:47

So I think part of it is shared vision. This is the way that I want to live my life and this is the type of way that I'm going to conduct myself. That overlaps with shared values. So those are kind of the close confidants that I have. And then, in terms of advisors, I only seek advice from people that have the type of results in their life that I want.

Anthony Mink: 20:11

So I'm going to take relationship advice from someone who's got a 35-year marriage and they're more passionate and intimate today than they've ever been. I'm not going to take it from my buddy who's single. I'm going to take business advice. Good plan, I'm going to take business advice from my mentor, who I'm going to take business advice from my mentor who's built and scaled and sold a nine figure company in a similar industry, so he knows the road ahead. So I would say it's kind of those two things Like if we're just going to be best friends or or confidants, if we're going to really celebrate and live life together, then values and vision and be in alignment there, if you're going to be a mentor or an advisor, if I'm going to seek your counsel, you have to be somewhere in an area of your life that I admire and that I want to be.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:58

Yeah, I think there's a lot of wisdom there. Truly, you know, in my work as an executive coach, I tell my clients you know, no one's going to cheer harder for you than I am and no one's going to be more in your corner than I am. And what troubles me so often is when I talk to somebody who tells me that I'm really the person in their corner one of the only ones because they don't have anybody else in their world who understands what they're dealing with.

Dr. William Attaway: 21:25

Because they don't have anybody else in their world who understands what they're dealing with, they haven't yet discovered the power of community and the power of other people who are encouraging you. You know, truett Cathy, who started Chick-fil-A, was famous for saying you want to know how to know if somebody needs encouragement, if they're breathing. That's how you know and I love that. I mean, I think that's so, so true. And you know what encouragement costs us. It costs us nothing and yet it's astounding to me how seldom people receive it, particularly entrepreneurs. And I wish I could say your story was unique or rare. I'm not sure it is. You know, and I love that, you have now begun to craft a life, a business and a podcast. Through your podcast, you're able to convey a lot of what you've learned. Share that and be a conduit of those lessons and, dare I say it, that encouragement to other people on their journey. I just love that man.

Anthony Mink: 22:31

Yeah, I really appreciate that and it is so interesting because it's very hard for anybody who's not an entrepreneur to understand the experience of what it is 100% there's. You know, it's like there's this quote from Elon that I really love and he's like.

Anthony Mink: 22:46

You know, entrepreneurship is kind of like chewing on glass while you stare into the abyss and he's like if, if you are the founder, ceo, you know, co-founder, whatever you get people hand that hand, deliver the shittiest problems to you that no one else can solve, and it's your responsibility to do that.

Anthony Mink: 23:08

And then you carry the weight of the organization of the. All the problems, the, the financial, the, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know on down the list and the people that now like, and also it's like the. The longer that you play the game, the more that you experience the waves of the game yes, that you play the game, the more that you experience the waves of the game, and the harder it is to really connect at a very deep level with someone who isn't also in that game to some degree. I have a really good friend named Jill Polish from Genius Network. He's been a big mentor of mine and he's the first person that I ever heard say this. But he said entrepreneurship is one of the loneliest roads that you can walk and that's why it's so critical to get around other entrepreneurs who you can have some of that shared experience with and really feel seen, heard and understood.

Dr. William Attaway: 23:57

So true. So tell me about Live Bearded Like. Where did the idea for this come from?

Anthony Mink: 24:02

Yeah, it's a great question. So I 2009, I was coming, I was going through bankruptcy and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and I sat down. I was broke, I had no money. I was like just destitute in the sense of like I'm a 23, 24 year old kid and I got no idea what I want to do in the world. And so I sat down and I'm like I'm going to write, I'm going to figure this out. What do I want to do? I have no fucking clue. I got. I got no experience. I go. I got no, no contrast for what I want to do.

Anthony Mink: 24:37

And then I asked myself maybe the best question at the time that I could have ever asked myself what don't I want? Oh, that's excellent. Oh, I have some answers to this. And so I started writing. I don't want to do this, I don't want to answer to anybody, I don't want someone to tell me what I have to do when I have to do it. And basically I wrote the manifesto for every fucking entrepreneur that was like fuck the man, I'm going to do my own thing, and but the key, but the key for me was I want to have time and locational freedom. I'm like, how do I create that? And at the time, social media was just kind of becoming a thing. Facebook was really coming online and I was like, if I could learn to make money on this crazy thing called the internet, ideally, or potentially, I could work when I want, where I want. And I was like man, if I could unlock that, I don't even care about making a bunch of money or anything else. And I had this dream of like I'm going to move to a foreign country and just live on a beach somewhere. And it's funny now digital nomads and this whole thing is super popular In 2009, there was no such thing, and so I proudly proclaim now that I was one of the very first digital nomads.

Anthony Mink: 25:47

But I got into affiliate marketing and it took me about 18 months to learn how to make enough money online to quit my job. And then I spent about five years just doing affiliate marketing and what I was doing was learning the skills the craft of writing paid ads, running paid ads, getting good at social media, email marketing. I was developing my skillset, and so I did that for five years and got to the point where I was a million dollar affiliate. I was making a bunch of money and then I took all of that and I invested it into a supplement nutrition company. I had sold a couple of businesses. I had about half a million dollars in cash and I was like this is my business, I'm going all in, I'm going to build my own thing.

Anthony Mink: 26:31

And nine months later I had about 50 grand left, totally lost it all and found myself being like how the fuck did I fuck up this bad and it's probably the lowest point in my entrepreneurial career, because I had a personal bankruptcy. Then I made a bunch of money and then I made it and I had the freedom and the success and then the personal feelings of significance. And then I risked it all on this one great idea and basically mismanaged and had realized that I wasn't as smart as I thought I was and I didn't really know what I was doing, and I lost it all and so I had to start over. And at that exact moment in time, one of my best friends, my co-founder with Live Bearded. Now imagine this I'm at my lowest point. I have no idea how I'm going to turn it around. I feel completely like I'm a loser and a failure, and my buddy Spencer's like I'd really love to learn how to make money online. Can you teach me? I'm like Spencer's like hey, bro, I'd really love to learn how to make money online. Can you teach me? I'm like me, you want me to teach you. And he didn't know necessarily the depths of what I was going through at the time, but we started engaging in this conversation of what it was like to make money online.

Anthony Mink: 27:38

It was no shave November 2015. And he was growing out a beard for the first time and all these dudes kept commenting on it. He had this good handlebar mustache and he's like man. Everywhere I go, guys are like coming up to me saying great beard, brother. Like your beard looks sick, man, your handlebar is amazing. And he's like I've never in my life got compliments like this from other dudes. And he's like I think this beard thing is becoming really popular.

Anthony Mink: 28:03

Have you ever thought about maybe doing marketing or selling some beard stuff? And I was like I had stubble. I'm like what's a beard oil? I don't have any idea, but I had the marketing acumen. So I put together a quick sales funnel, put some things together. I ordered 500 wooden combs on Alibaba. I paid a designer $500 to create a logo. They stamped the logo on the combs and they ended up in my kitchen and around the first of the year, january 2016,. I was like, all right, let me see if I can sell any of these things. Put together some Facebook ads and I sold all 500 combs in about a day and a half. Wow, and the engagement rate on the ads was higher than anything I had seen in any of my previous affiliate marketing.

Anthony Mink: 28:51

And I looked at Spence and I said shit bro, I guess we got to figure out how to send out 500 combs. Still to this day, we joke about licking and sticking because there's pictures of us in the freaking living room licking and sticking envelopes sending out these first 500 combs and me, being the marketer and ambitious guy, I'm like, well shit, if we sold 500, let's order 5,000 and see what happens. And so we went through this testing process. To make a long story short, we ordered 5,000. We sold them over the course of a few months, did some market research.

Anthony Mink: 29:29

The thing that I would say that was the smartest thing we did is we created a private Facebook group, again early 2016. Anybody who bought from us. As part of the post-purchase email sequence, we invited them to join. Spencer had no marketing experience so I was like you have one job. I said read this article from Kevin Kelly, called a thousand true fans and understand how we can turn these people into raving fans. And so he was the spokesperson and the product expert and the community ambassador and for probably six months he connected individually with every single customer that came into that group. We asked them why did you grow your beard? What do you like about the products? What do you not like? What products do you want? What products would you use? Would you try this? Would you try that Real-time customer feedback in a private Facebook group with a couple thousand men? That led to us developing all of our own products, launching the website in the end of 2016, building out our product line, and the rest, I guess they say, is history. You know we've done over 50 million in sales.

Anthony Mink: 30:33

You know have a really incredible company and it started from this idea of of a really good friend coming to me and saying, hey man, how could we work together and do something online? And what became the whole ethos of Live Bearded kind of grew out of that idea of well, spence and I have been friends for 10 years. At this point, what if every customer that we did business with we treated as if we would treat my friend of 10 years? How do we make everything about brotherhood? And that's why we had that one-to-one connection. That's why we wanted to get their feedback. It was. It was never about how do I sell as much beard shit and make as much money as possible. Obviously, we had a profit motive, but we both intuitively understood that profit came on the other side of relationship. So good, if we could focus on the relationship first, the rest of it would take care of itself.

Dr. William Attaway: 31:33

I really hope everybody listening is taking notes, because you just dropped so much wisdom there. Anthony, Thank you so much value. Let me ask you this, so you know you have to lead at a higher level today than you did five years ago. Your team, your clients, everybody is looking to you and your co-founder to lead at a higher level. That same thing is going to be true five years from now. You're going to have to lead at an even higher level and they're going to ask and demand even more of you. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new leadership skills that your business and your team and your clients are going to need you to have?

Anthony Mink: 32:27

Yeah, it's a great question and one of the things I think one of the most interesting lessons to learn in business is what you're talking about. Early on I thought, man, once we get this new product live, or once this new website is done, or once we have this new marketing's a greater need required by the leader, there's a greater capacity that is demanded, and so I think the short answer is you just have to commit to constant and never-ending improvement. You know, we have this kind of better everyday ethos built into the way that we approach things, both at Live Bearded and then in my personal life. You know, I think I've just my model of the world is education first, that then creates opportunity for skill and then you can turn that skill into success and experience. So I think the short answer maybe it's a little bit cliche, but it's like I just I'm ruthless about education.

Anthony Mink: 33:18

I'm always investing into mentorship programs, into advisors. I've spent easily north of half a million dollars of my own money on coaching courses, conferences. I hired Tony Robbins and worked with him for a year in his highest level coaching program. I did a private coaching with Patrick, but David with you know I've got an advisor that I'm paying a substantial amount of money on a monthly basis to help guide us to the next level. So the truth is, I what I've learned is I never have a how problem. I always have a who problem, and so the way that I continue to elevate my capacity is by investing into myself and putting myself in proximity and in relationship with people that are farther ahead than me. That can help me elevate to the next level.

Dr. William Attaway: 34:13

So much wisdom, so much wisdom there.

Anthony Mink: 34:16

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway: 34:17

As you have continued in your path as a constant learner, which is obvious anybody who spends more than two minutes with you. You're constantly learning. Is there a book that has made a tremendous difference in your journey that you would recommend to the leaders who are listening?

Anthony Mink: 34:32

I mean a couple of them for sure. On the, I think most of my reading it falls into two categories. It's more around like the personal development side and then the business side. And I mean so much of business is like the application, or the personal development and action, if you will.

Anthony Mink: 34:49

I think one of the best books I've ever read is as a man Thinketh. Yes, you know, super old school book, written in the early 90s, but it's where I kind of developed that fundamental philosophy of my life is my fault, you know. One of my favorite quotes from there is like what is it? Man is made or unmade by himself, you know. So there's these really beautiful thoughts, but as a man thinketh, everyone has to read it.

Anthony Mink: 35:14

The four agreements, I think everyone should read it. Thinketh, everyone has to read it. The Four Agreements, I think everyone should read it. The Power of Awareness, all about how the way that we create the future that we want is by assuming the feeling of that in desire, already being created. We have to live out as if it's already a present fact. So some of these very psychological mindset driven things, those have been very, very critical to me. One of my favorite business books of all time is the Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham. If you don't know who Keith Cunningham is, he's actually the guy that Rich Dad, poor Dad is kind of based on, and this idea of.

Anthony Mink: 35:52

He's the quote rich dad, but he's an incredible entrepreneur. That one is super helpful. That one's really helped me. The book Unreasonable Hospitality so good Will Gadara yeah, yeah, from a culture standpoint has been incredible. I really love Alex Hermosi. I've read both of his books from a tactical marketing perspective but I mean there's, there's so many good ones. Those are a couple that have really helped me on my journey.

Dr. William Attaway: 36:17

That's phenomenal, Anthony. I could talk to you for another hour. There's just so much insight and wisdom and I'm so grateful to you for sharing it so freely today with me and with our listeners. I know people are going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn from you. What is the?

Anthony Mink: 36:34

best way for them to do that. Yeah, man, first off, I just really appreciate the opportunity to come on and share, and it's amazing to see what you've accomplished with your podcast and your capacity as an executive coach and mentor. I think is really incredible and that's one of the reasons why I was so excited to talk to you today. You know so, anthony Mink at Anthony Mink on Instagram anthonyminkcom I youcom.

Anthony Mink: 36:57

I just got into this crazy world of putting out content in the last year, year and a half or so, and I'm having a lot of fun with it, but really I'm doing it just because I want to share parts of my experience and hope that they can serve and inspire others on theirs. So if any part of this resonated, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram or reach out to me directly through my website. Livebeardedcom is the business as well. You can reach out to us there. I'm super accessible and would love to help anyone on the journey. If anything that I have shared has touched a nerve or inspired you, please feel free to reach out. I'd love to help any way I can.

Dr. William Attaway: 37:32

I love that. We'll have all those links in the show notes, anthony, thank you.

Anthony Mink: 37:37

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Dr. William Attaway: 37:38

It's been amazing. Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. View it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast.

Dr. William Attaway: 38:03

Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out. My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.