Faith, Family, and Discipline: The Entrepreneur’s Path to True Success | Ernest Diaz

From Sleep Apnea Clinics to Better Health Coverage — Lessons from Building Four Businesses

In this episode of Small Business Pivots, host Michael Morrison sits down with Ernest Diaz, founder of Better Coverage Consultants, to unpack the hard-earned lessons from a lifetime of entrepreneurship.

Ernest has built four successful companies — from launching sleep apnea clinics across multiple states to now helping small businesses and self-employed individuals access private health insurance plans that are 40–50% less expensive than marketplace options and fully tax-deductible. Licensed in 34 states, Ernest reveals why most entrepreneurs don’t know these plans exist, and how they can offer national PPO coverage through UnitedHealthcare.

But this conversation goes far beyond insurance. Ernest shares his personal journey — starting his first business at 23, enduring a hostile business partnership while taking a company public, weathering bankruptcy, and rebuilding stronger than before. Along the way, he delivers powerful insights on:

• Partnership pitfalls and how to protect yourself legally and financially.
• Why discipline — not motivation — is the real driver of success.
• How to avoid sacrificing your family for your business.
• The daily habits that keep him focused, grateful, and growth-oriented.

If you’re a small business owner, self-employed professional, or entrepreneur navigating the highs and lows of business ownership, this episode is packed with practical wisdom, faith-centered perspective, and real-world strategies you can apply today.

Listen now and discover how to protect your business, your health, and your future.

Ernest Diaz: Founder & CEO of Better Coverage Consultants

Website: https://bettercov.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bettercov/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bettercov

Email: ernest@bettercov.com

#ErnestDiaz #BetterCoverageConsultants #MichaelDMorrison #BOSS #SmallBusinessPivots #OklahomaCity #SmallBusinessSuccess #BusinessPodcast #Entrepreneurship #BusinessGrowth #PrivateHealthInsurance #NationalPPO #UnitedHealthcare #BusinessPartnerships #DisciplineOverMotivation #FaithBasedBusiness #SelfEmployedSuccess #HealthInsuranceForSmallBusiness #BusinessResilience #FaithInBusiness #God

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Ernest Diaz
• 3:11 Early Entrepreneurial Journey
• 9:09 Building and Selling First Business
• 16:42 Partnership Lessons and Going Public
• 22:43 Overcoming Bankruptcy and Finding Balance
• 28:01 God-Centered Business Mindset
• 31:43 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read
• 34:26 The Power of Discipline in Business

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, welcome to another Small Business, pivots, where we have special guests from around the world. This one isn't too far away from me, here in Oklahoma City, but, as you know, I let our guests introduce themselves because only they can do that themselves and their business. So I'm going to let you have the floor and tell us a little bit about what you do.

Speaker 2: 0:22

My name is Ernest Diaz. I own Better Coverage Consultants and what we do is we specialize in private plans that are designed for small businesses and self-employed individuals. They're not available through the marketplace and a lot of people actually don't know they exist. They're 40 to 50 percent less and the tax advantages are far better and fully tax deductible with national PPO coverage through UnitedHealthcare.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Well, fantastic. So you've been an entrepreneur for a majority of your life, I believe, and so how do you think we're going to help our listeners today?

Speaker 2: 1:00

So I mean I can share some of my experiences. I've actually built four separate businesses and I have been self-employed since I was 23 years old, grew up in California, actually in Los Angeles or a suburb of Los Angeles and went to Loma Linda University, became a respiratory therapist and I'm a chemist by trade as well, but through respiratory therapy I became intrigued with sleep and the first business to spend off was apnea monitors and got involved with SIDS and some of the research with that. So I started training parents with the apnea monitors and tried to help them understand how. I mean, we don't really know what causes SIDS, but at least some of the warning things that they want to look at. In regards to babies having difficulty breathing, but most SIDS cases occur between the age of four to six months, so even the little babies are not the ones that are affected, but obviously we don't know why that happens.

Speaker 1: 2:04

Yeah, yeah. Well, you've got a journey to share and I'm sure you've got lots of insights, so let's introduce the show real quick and we'll be right back. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, a podcast produced for small business owners. I'm your host, Michael Morrison, founder and CEO of BOSS, where we make business ownership simplified for success. Our business is helping yours grow. Boss offers business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at businessownershipsimplifiedcom. All right, welcome back to Small Business Pivots. My friend, you started your entrepreneur journey at 23 years old. A lot of people like to know why. You know, when we work with business owners as business coaches myself we find that they're either running from something or running to something. They usually have some kind of something internally that drives them to that, Because not everybody's equipped to be an entrepreneur. So kind of, catch us up to what got you down that path.

Speaker 2: 3:19

That's an interesting question If I were to do some soul searching and share that with the audience. I think for me it was the way that I grew up. My father was for lack of a better word somewhat harsh, but he was also an entrepreneur himself, and I think I grew up just trying to prove myself to him to the point where, though, didn't measure up, and so some of the um guides that that drove me to. At first, it was more about seeking his approval, seeking his, you know, wanting him to be proud of me. Later on, it that became more of a I'm going to prove you wrong, I can't do this.

Speaker 2: 4:07

And then, essentially, I mean my father. Never really he was not the type of guy that told you hey, I'm proud of you, and so you kind of emulate some of the things that he did. He was a self-made man in that regards, and his standards were very, very high. So that was my, my initial desire of doing that. The other part of that is obviously I don't, I don't do very well people telling me what to do, and I can see a good thing and a bad thing. You know, I've been uh, I've been divorced twice, and and that affects some of those relationships as well, not willing to listen. You're very stubborn, but you're also very focused and it leads you to grow in certain ways but also ignore parts of your life that, as you mature, you begin to think, okay, you need to try and rekindle and rebuild that as well.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Yeah. So all you entrepreneurs out there listening, there was nothing wrong with you, we're all in the same boat. Mine was trying to prove my self-worth to myself, no, no one else. So we're, you know. I find it kind of interesting what led us down that path. So how did you get into the first business? What were your aha moments? What was the wins, the uglies, the losses?

Speaker 2: 5:23

So the motivation itself was to, I guess, emulate what my father was doing, which he was an accountant, so he had been self-employed since I was a kid. I actually grew up in Nicaragua and my dad was very wealthy back then and he had a lot of hardware stores throughout the country. But when the company the Sandinistas happened there so I'm actually 60 years old, so you guys know we actually got out of there. The whole economy imploded and my father, my father's family, was from here, from the US, so we had already come here when we were just kids and gotten green cards, residence, permanent residency so it was pretty easy to come into the United States and reside here thereafter.

Speaker 2: 6:16

So to answer your point in that regards is I think I was also programmed to be self-employed. It was never something that I ever doubted myself and it was just. It's just a matter of figuring out how, what to do and, through me, loving working with babies, because as a respiratory therapist I was involved in the NICU and seeing babies and I saw a lot of birth that had difficulties from that perspective. That's what our startups do. We only deal with the critical side of things, then moving into the SIDS and apnea monitors and then eventually developing a respiratory company. It was kind of like it just kind of evolved itself, you know, from that perspective, you started at such a young age.

Speaker 1: 7:06

What were some of those things that you learned you wish you would have done differently, and what are some of the things that you learned that you still use today?

Speaker 2: 7:16

So I at a young age, you don't know what you don't know. I think as you grow and there's been four companies that I built I think, thinking back, you're so focused on what you're doing that you know. Everybody talks about life-work balance. I don't believe that exists. I think that if you are at home, you should be 100% engaged there. If you're at work, you should be 100% engaged there. If you're at work, you should be 100% engaged there. And it could be 80%, meaning 80% business and 20% of family, or 90-10. And if you're building something that's substantial, it could be 95-5. So your family is always involved when you're building anything, because they're sacrificing even the time that you have with you. But we're so tunnel vision, you know, as entrepreneurs, and you know, going back to you don't know what you don't know.

Speaker 2: 8:10

My first company, which I sold off. It made a lot of money. One of the things that I lacked was the accounting part of it, the financial part of it, which ended up costing me a lot, and so I learned through that experience that you've got to make sure that you have a solid CEO and I'm sorry, cfo that is going to take care of those things, because I hate numbers. I'm all about sales. I'm business development that is where I thrive and even management of people. I don't really, you know, enjoy.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Interesting how some of us follow in our parents' footsteps and others of us don't. You knew numbers were important, but you still didn't heed your parents' advice. And for me it was the same too, because my dad was in the mechanic world auto mechanic. To this day, I refuse to work on cars. I hate it. He was a great guy I loved, just I'm. It just wasn't for me. You know that profession, so so what? You sold that company and you went right back into another one. What happened there?

Speaker 2: 9:16

so it appeared into sleep apnea and built a sleep apnea company, uh, where we had as well as uh the apnea, uh diagnostics part of it and into um supplies as well, ended up establishing centers with physicians doing partnerships with them, and established about 16 centers throughout eight different states. And then somebody came over to me and said, hey, let's take this company public. So we had enough of a top line to even consider that In retrospective one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made. One of the things that you know. I don't know how you feel about Donald Trump, but one of the statements that he's always made is you can't do good business with bad partners, and that was my experience through that company. It took about nine years to build and as we were progressing and finally got it into the stock market, which is really it's just penny stocks at this point. So I would not advise anybody to even do anything with it. But it was. You know the movies that show you an entrepreneur building a business and taking it public and then getting fired. That was me.

Speaker 1: 10:37

So that was you in the movie. I know a movie star now yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:41

And you know it always comes down to communication, it always comes out communication. But, um, I learned a big lesson about that. Um, it's. It's not just about building something, it's about making sure that you fit in with the people that you're doing business with. Um, and you know in retrospect, maybe I was the back partner in that regards and so that came about, you know, from from there, and I had to walk away from that, leave it alone and then build something different here in Oklahoma. So that transition there took me to Colorado, from Colorado now into here in Oklahoma now.

Speaker 1: 11:19

Well, let's talk about the partnership, because there's a lot of partnerships out there and they say that the only ships that don't sell is a partnership. So what are some things that you learned from that that could have maybe gone differently had you done something. Is there anything that you can help other partnerships with in that regard?

Speaker 2: 11:41

Yeah, yeah, partnerships are delicate, you know. A lot of times we get involved with people that we love and that gets sour. Relationship ones would disagree on the direction that we want to go. So it's you know. Then attorneys get involved and it can get pretty messy. So if you are going to do a partnership, remember that as you continue to grow, the money comes in, the conflicts are coming to play to try and determine how things you got to define who is going to deal with what. I think that's the best advice I can give you. But also be prepared for the fact that you're not always going to agree regardless, and so you have to define who is going to make the final decision. You know what's happening Now.

Speaker 2: 12:32

When it comes down to a partnership in business, having a 50-50 split many times can come back and bite you in the butt and so somebody has to have 51%, somebody has to have 49%. But it's tough when you're doing it from the very beginning. I never had to experience that. I always had something and then somebody came in to play. But taking a company public changes the complete landscape of that.

Speaker 2: 12:57

But if you have a private entity and you're trying to build it on your own. My advice to you is always retain majority of that so that if things don't go the way that you planned, you can definitely either buy somebody out or say well, you know, I'm the majority owner, so I'm going to make the decisions which may not sometimes also be beneficial to the business in the long run. But you know, when you're an entrepreneur you have that tunnel vision which is it's actually can be detrimental to you. You know, make sure you're open to other people's advice and try to figure out, obviously, your intentions. But if somebody is really truly giving you advice because they want to help sit down, analyze it, take the time to listen and never think that you can't learn, regardless of how long you've been in.

Speaker 1: 13:46

You mentioned how delicate they are and I want to share with our listeners about partnerships, because we've all heard the statistics that marriages end in divorce 50% of the time. Right, so that's a pretty high number. Well, in the business world, partnerships divorce over 70% of the time. So when you say delicate, I wanted to put that into perspective for our listeners of how delicate it really is. And in a marriage, what I found because we coach on business partnerships in a marriage I found it's emotional, right, there's emotional things that go on In a business partnership. It's money. We're fighting about money here. So you know and you're saying communication is key, like understanding your role and things like that. Anything else you would add to that Because it is very delicate.

Speaker 2: 14:43

The other expression that I've heard is it's business. But you got to understand business is personal. There is no such thing as separating one from the other, and so the emotions come into play, because it's your baby, it's your ownership. In a relationship like that, you gotta be willing to put in writing who's gonna make the final decision. And then there has to be an out right, because if you totally disagree with what's happening, then something has to be written where you can walk away if you really do not agree with that individual.

Speaker 2: 15:18

And I've seen that over and over Just somebody just digs their heels in, regardless of the benefit as a whole, or they just get in themselves because somebody's not doing what they want them to do, that they're not working with them. So you got to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. And, like you said, the statistic is it's a little bit dark, but when you're in the middle of it, always check your motivation. Why are you doing what you're about to do? And is a partnership really? You know a good way to do it.

Speaker 1: 15:53

Yeah, you mentioned the key word and that's communicate. But I want to share also where the communication should start, and that's before the partnership evolves. Because in the partnership we have found through our research and studies that people date longer, you know, in a relationship than they date in a business partnership. Business partnership, let's go. We got ideas, we're fresh, we got money, let's go. And they don't really talk about those things that need to be talked about the exits and who's going to do what and who makes that final decision. So those are all key nuggets for our listeners. So you moved to Oklahoma and did what you just. You're just like glutton for punishment. Right, like one goes down, let's go for another one. You're like getting back in the ring here. What'd you do next?

Speaker 2: 16:48

I built another sleep company here and we were doing very, very well. It was just me, no partnerships. We had. Lsd was set up from the centers, the sleep centers with the doctors, but the core company was just mine. And the affordable care act came into play and that actually cut our reimbursement by 84. A lot of people don't know that the other part of the affordable care wasn't just about health insurance, it was also uh, you know, obama believed that doctors should not have a business where they serve as their own clients, because it posed a conflict of interest. But if you actually look at the statistics, physician-owned facilities do much better care than something that's corporate run. So, besides the point, our reimbursement was cut 86% and I ended up shutting that down.

Speaker 2: 17:42

For about three years, I thought, because I ever thought that I could fail and I figured I'm going to figure it out. But, man, you just can't overcome something like that, and that was part of me also not being willing to listen, you know, to some people that gave me some advice about when to shut that down or at least move it on, move on from it, and that was a very expensive lesson, because I ended up to file bankruptcy on that particular company and went through some times where I've truly experienced loss and went through a divorce as well, through it as well. So it cost me a lot, but at the same time, it helped me appreciate money. Up until that moment, yeah, uh, money was there. It's always. You know, it was just something that I I always saw myself as creating it regardless, I'll just make more. And there was a lot of waste going on and, uh, it was a period of about six or seven months where it really sucked, for lack of a better word.

Speaker 1: 18:47

Yeah. Yeah, it is not for the week, that is for sure. And now you've moved on and you're doing well, so we're we're going to talk about what are those things you've carried with you the, the good and the and the ugly, what not to do, what to do's in this new business venture that you're in now, and you shared what it was earlier.

Speaker 2: 19:14

I think you know, in effect, that your life is somewhat outlined. As you get close to God and as you start doing the things that you do, I mean you can talk yourself into anything, regardless of what's going on around you. My advice to you is just look at the things that are going around you. You know what other relationships around you doing. Are you sacrificing what's going on around you because of the sake of what you're trying to achieve? And sometimes giving up a little bit can actually come back to you tenfold, and what I mean by that. If you're spending a lot of time trying to build this business and ignoring your family, my advice is take a look at that and see in the end result. You know, maybe you back off a little bit and and spend more time with your family trying to build that and make sure that your kids are going to be there when things are flourishing and doing well. I know a lot of entrepreneurs think that they're going to pass on their businesses to their children, but if you mess this up, your children are not going to want anything to do with the business. Good point. So if that is something that you focus on, make sure they're involved, but don't be a boss, right, be a mentor, and if they're not wanting to be involved, that's okay. You shouldn't put that burden on them, you know, based on what you're trying to achieve, because that's very, very selfish. So, you know, always, always stand. I think the biggest advice I can give you is you know, start with the end in mind, and that's Franklin Covey Write down what is your goal for your business.

Speaker 2: 20:52

You know, wherever you are today, maybe you've been on it for 10 years, you're just getting started, or is this something that you're having an idea of what you want to do? Write down what is your goal, why are you doing what you're about to do? And why are you doing what you're about to do and are you really loving it? Because I've been there. I worked 16-hour days for years and it sucks, because you wake up one day and you're like where's all the relationships? Where did everything go? And, yeah, you may be looking at a pile of money, or maybe not, because you didn't have control over that, and still it was. You know, was it all well worth it? Make sure you do not ignore your spirituality. Make sure you stay connected to you know a church or you know some spiritual friends and to make sure that you stay connected to your family and listen to what they're saying.

Speaker 1: 21:37

A few of our episodes recently have been on the topic of mindset, and for someone like you, it's evident that you have a growth mindset. You're listening to Small Business Pivots. This podcast is produced by my company, boss. Our business is helping yours grow. Boss offers business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at businessownershipsimplifiedcom. If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share it as well. Now let's get back to our special guest. A few of our episodes recently have been on the topic of mindset, and for someone like you, it's evident that you have a growth mindset, in other words, a mind of abundance, a mind of keep going. Can you help the rest of our listeners, because most people over two-thirds of people don't have that kind of mindset. Can you help us with, like, what are some daily routines you do through? You know, obviously God is important, spirituality is important, family is important, but what are some of those things that keep you just going after it?

Speaker 2: 22:55

What I have learned through my failures is that you got to be God-centered, the abundance. If you believe that it is God who's giving you this opportunity, then competition should not come into your mindset, you know, I mean it is God who is in control of it. So if he's giving you this business to grow, obviously you know there's purpose to it, and a lot of times we think that God is with us when we're being successful and when we're down we think that god is not there or he's punishing us, which is not true, not at all. Um, be, be careful with that mindset. Be careful and always remember god did bring you this blessing, did not allow that blessing to become a curse. The other part of this, when it comes to be careful, with a lot of teachings out there that tell you that you can do anything you want, that all you need is yourself, all you need is to do more, et cetera, et cetera, because and I don't know if you guys know this, but there's a Gnostic teaching that that's what it's about. You know even from the very beginning, what they're teaching you is that you are God, you are your own God, and it'll work for a while, trust me, it'll work for a while. But when you look back and you look in front of you and see what you've done to your own relationships, you'll understand why that's not the right way to approach things, because if you are God-centered, then your family will also be important and it'll be hard for you to ignore that piece and in the end result it'll save you a lot of grief because you're no longer putting it all on yourself. You're reaching out to a higher power to make sure that that is accomplished the way it needs to be.

Speaker 2: 24:45

God knows your needs from the very beginning and so if you recognize that and you do it for him, then competition is not going to be a big issue. If somebody does you wrong, it's not going to be hard to recover from that because you're going to have some grace. Recover from that because you're going to have some grace for lack of a better word and guess what? You know the forgiveness part of it will help you then focus, to move forward and you know then you know God will bless that. So I don't know, you know, answers your question in that regards. But that's one thing that I learned even through my darkest times understanding that my focus was myself instead of recognizing that it was God who's actually given me this and I messed it up.

Speaker 1: 25:30

Yeah, amen. You mention often either quotes or books, things like that what is a business book that every business owner should read, and why, and what has it done for you?

Speaker 2: 25:45

Okay. So 10X is a great book, but remember 1-10X, grant Cardone it's agnostic-based, meaning you can do anything you can't you want if you set your mind to it and then just give it more time, more time. So always keep that in perspective. There are great things about wanting to create and be focused on what you want to do, but do not be God out of it. But 10X is one of the books that helped me remind myself that I need to get off my butt and get it done. Remind myself that I need to get off my butt and get it done. And the other one that I would recommend is StoryBrand 2.0, and that's by Donald Miller, and StoryBrand addresses the issues of how to properly market yourself through social media. I believe that you don't really need to read any other book except for StoryBrand if you want to learn how to properly do that, and once you start reading it, you'll understand that. And then the other one that I would highly recommend is Atomic Habits.

Speaker 2: 26:52

Many times we focus on revenue, which is basically an end result, and I understand. You know you have bills to pay. You have a minimum amount of money that you got to make in order to keep afloat. However, many times you can't control outcome, but you can control activity. So focus on the things that are going to create that money and the revenue itself, and control those things. So let me give you an example. So if you're doing calls, how many calls can you do on a daily basis to create the type of revenue as you build it back? If you last year, it took you and I'm going to throw this number a hundred calls to create $30,000 that week, well, if you are going to do 60,000, or if you need 45,000, you can think well, it's going to. You know, you got to do double the amount of calls. You can control the number of calls you make. However, be careful with that expectation, but consistency will overcome anything. So maybe you do double the calls this week and you're discouraged because you didn't hit the goal that you needed. That's okay. Make sure that you don't give up on that and keep doing that, week after week after week, and eventually it'll catch up with you. But if you are focused specifically on the outcome, you will become discouraged and you'll think well, you know I did all this for nothing. No, no, stay consistent, stay consistent.

Speaker 2: 28:19

Now, obviously, you know the definition of insanity right. It's making a different result with the same income. I mean the same input. So make sure you assess what you're doing, make sure you're always a student of your tasks. So if it's the phones, if it's networking, if social media, make sure you're always training yourself to be better. And the old saying you don't know what you don't know. Find a mentor that has done what you're trying to achieve and latch onto that person you know, serve them and, and, and trust me, that will save you more, more, um, I guess I can say money, because time is money. More time to be able to achieve your goals by learning from somebody that's willing to teach. And that can be a little tricky because, you know, a lot of people have that competitive mentality, but you'll find that, you know, if you pray about it, you'll find somebody that's going to be willing to. And I find that a lot of entrepreneurs are willing to teach you what they know if they have the right mindset themselves as well.

Speaker 1: 29:23

Absolutely so. You're a great salesperson. You have systems in place. Most business owners don't believe it or not. Most business owners don't Most of the ones that come to us. They don't have a system at all. They don't even have a CRM. They wonder why sales aren't going as well as they want. Have a CRM and wonder why sales aren't going as well as they want. So what are the top three things that you feel, being an established salesperson, that every business owner should at least be doing these things to increase their revenue.

Speaker 2: 29:54

So write your goals on a monthly I would say yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily, and so, whatever your revenue goal is for the year, you break it down into four specific goals that you have for that and then break it down all the way down to the day. But remember what I just said you focus on activity. The activity is what's gonna get you to the revenue and those are the things that you can control. That's where Atomic Habits to teach you uh as well and um, you know. So, developing the tasks is is going to be the the best thing for you guys to to to achieve, because you can't control that. You can't control your own activity. Um, you know and I'm just trying to think of anything else that I can give you advice in that regards but there's no such thing as motivation, right? The one word that I want you to really, really, I guess, tattoo in your mind as you're building a business is discipline. Nothing is achieved without discipline. You know you won't be motivated all the time. Discipline is what's going to get you and carry you over. But that's where you know you have to outline the task that you need to achieve and then you got to develop the discipline to do it when you don't want to do it. Because if you don't want to go to that networking meeting because you want to talk to people and you actually do it, you'll find that you will be able to accomplish a lot more by pushing yourself through, and then you'll be glad that you did it.

Speaker 2: 31:24

You know you get up at 6 am or 5 am, whatever it is that you need to do. Get out to the gym, make sure you stay healthy. What's the point of you having $2 million in the bank if your heart's failing you right? So don't ignore that as well. And then the third person I mean the third thing is be and have an attitude of being grateful, because if you get up with that attitude and be grateful about the things, they, or at least say thanks for the things that you appreciate, that day Could be your wife, your husband, could be kids, whatever your health. God, you know, I hope that you're appreciative of your health, and if that's not the case, you know there's always going to be something that you are grateful about and then work towards achieving those goals.

Speaker 2: 32:15

But don't ignore the attitude of gratitude that is out there, because that's going to feed your soul. Don't ignore your body, you know. Make sure that you're eating right, you're exercising. And then, lastly, you know, when it comes to your mind, make sure that you're focusing on the right tasks, you know, and goals that you're trying to do, and you know that should be able to, you know, because, again, lack of control is what gives you this lack of motivation. That don't think about motivation, think about discipline. Push through and if you're not writing your goals, that's discipline, that's lack of discipline. Write them down. You know where am I lacking discipline in what I'm doing?

Speaker 1: 33:01

That is probably one of the most powerful things I've heard all year is the word discipline. Even the shark tank people say you want to know what separates the 1% action, and it doesn't mean that we want to take action every day there. I don't want to get up every day and go run, I don't want to go do this and make phone calls and fly across the country, but I do. That's the only thing that separates. So it's discipline.

Speaker 2: 33:28

Yeah that's it, that's the. That's the key word. If you're thinking about a, uh, a magic potion, that's it, that's the word. Um, that's not motivation, it's discipline. Um, and anybody that's accomplished anything at all is because they push through. On those days they do not feel like doing it. So, yeah, lack of motivation is going to happen, but it doesn't have to be lack of discipline.

Speaker 1: 33:52

Absolutely so. You've probably piqued some interest from others wanting to follow you or get in touch with you. What's the best way to do that?

Speaker 2: 34:01

with you what's the best way to do that. So my website again. What we do is we help self-employed individuals and small businesses become aware of health plans that are available out there for you. They can save you a lot of money and also give you great tax advantages. My company is Better Covers Consultant, so my domain is bettercov, that's bettercovcom, and there is ways for you to set up a call with me so we can talk and, I'm happy to you know, even give you advice in regards to your business. I am tied in with a lot of networking groups because I'm actually licensed in 34 states, and so if it's something that you can offer nationally, I can tie you in for those. If it's something that you can offer nationally, I can tie you in for those. If it's something locally here in Oklahoma, I'd love to have a cup of coffee with you and see if I can help.

Speaker 1: 34:48

So what's the ideal small business for you that this program could help?

Speaker 2: 34:56

It could be self-employed, and so I have about 4,000 companies that I help and one-third of them are just self-employed individuals and their spouses. The rest of that that's two-thirds can have anywhere between five employees and only have 38 employees. Where things change is when you've got more than 50 employees, because now you have to offer an ACA plan or at least give them an option. Then we can still work through that as well.

Speaker 1: 35:23

Fantastic. Well, if there is one last piece of advice to business owners, no matter what industry, what size of business, two employees, 2000 employees what would that be that could help someone today? Could be a quote, an insight, a book or whatever.

Speaker 2: 35:39

I think. Remember that you were. You were meant for greatness. Okay, you were meant for greatness, so don't give up on that goal. However, remember where that source comes from. It's not from within, it is from God. So if you are God-centered, have an attitude of being grateful about what you've got, you will succeed. And even if I don't care what success looks like to you, whether it's a million dollars in the bank or $50,000 in the bank, it doesn't really matter. It's your dream, it's your goal. But also remember the source. The source is God, and if you do not forget that, you can't fail.

Speaker 1: 36:20

Amen. Well said, appreciate your time today. You've helped a lot of people. Wish you continued success and we'll see you around.

Speaker 2: 36:28

Thank you, Michael. I appreciate you inviting me and I really enjoyed this my pleasure.

Speaker 1: 36:33

Thank you for listening to Small Business Pivots. This podcast is created and produced by my company, boss. Our business is growing yours. Boss, offers flexible business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at businessownershipsimplifiedcom. If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share it as well. If you need help growing your business, email me at michael at michaeldmorrisoncom. We'll see you next time on Small Business Pivots.