So that was going along great and by November, I was down to less than a week, a month. And I came in right before Thanksgiving and talked to Brad who was the general manager and was actually running the company, and one of my partners. And he asked if he could talk to me. And I said, sure. So I sat down and he {inaudible 02:19} all around, and I’ve worked with Brad for many years, so I knew something was bothering him. And finally, I just said, what’s bothering you? What? And he says, “how do we get you out of here?” And I kind of looked at him and I said, “what do you mean?” He says, “\well, we want to buy you out.” I said, “really? Well, what changed?” I said, “We put this in play at the beginning of the year that I would gift you guys more stock.” He goes, “yeah, but you’re off doing your own thing. And we want to do stuff around here, and we feel like we have to wait for you to get back to go over stuff.” I’m like, “but Brad, I told you guys, just do what you’re doing, run the company, you’re doing a great job. You’re doing a better job than I do.” He’s like, “yeah, but we’re just still obligated to tell you.” And finally, I just said, “Brad, if I were you guys, I’d want me out of here too.” So we sat down, that was right before Thanksgiving, and we sat down, we came up with a contract, and by December 21st we had signed the papers. And as of December 31st, 2018, I was no longer an owner.

David Heimer: Good for you. How does it feel to be out of the business?

Kelly Schols: Well, I’m not completely out of it, because I am coaching and mentoring people. And I have some financial classes which we can talk about, but you know, I’m still involved in it. I’m involved through Service Nation Alliance and through some other coaching opportunities I’ve had, and I’m still a consultant for CPI. Part of the buyout agreement was that I would be a consultant for them. So, I’m not in a day-to-day operation, but still am involved in the industry.

David Heimer: You gotta feel pretty good about that. There’s a fair number of people that start businesses. There’s a fair number of people that grow the business to a successful level. And then it’s a smaller number of people at each level, and then the number of people that build it, and then sell it to somebody else and make a successful transition is even smaller numbers. So good for you. Way to go.

Kelly Schols: Yeah. And then, you know, we didn’t really know, because when I put the plan in place at the beginning of 2018, for the three years, is once we got to the third year, we were going to evaluate it at that time and decide at that time, whether they were going to buy me out or we were going to sell to a third party. And it just sped up the process by me stepping away and letting them run the company, without me being there. So many people, so many owners want to be engaged, they want to micromanage. They don’t let their people actually run the business. And when you step back and you let them run the business, you find out, they usually run it better than you do.

David Heimer: If you hire the right people. They do, yeah.

Kelly Schols: Yeah. And you know, I could have stayed there and still own the company, but it was time. It was time to let them take the reins and run with it. And you know, in 2019, like I said, I’m still a consultant for him, so I still go in and see him, and I still see the financials and everything. In 2019, they had a great year.

David Heimer: So you wrote a book, tell us about the book.

Kelly Schols: So Never By The Book. That doesn’t mean I don’t want people to buy it.

David Heimer: That’s B Y and not B U Y.

Kelly Schols: Yeah, exactly. A lot of people get that confused too. So, you know, I’ve done podcasts before and you and I have talked and a lot of people know, and for the people that don’t know, my wife passed away, excuse me. Unexpectedly, in 2012. And a year after that, some friends and I decided to do a hike, in the local area where we live. And when we decided to do the hike, the local hospital found out about it and asked us to do a fundraiser. So we started planning this, the hospital director came and asked me if I would name the Cardiac Rehabilitation Center after my late wife, through this hike. So we determined, through talking to my daughters and friends and everything that yes, we would go ahead and do that. Well, how are you going to raise money? Started going around to the local Rotary, and Kiwanis, and all the local clubs trying to raise money.

As we’re doing that, I was telling my story, my story of business, what I’ve been through in business, and losing my wife and everything. When I was telling the story, people started asking, do you have a book? And I’m like, “no”, they’re like, “oh, you should write a book.” And I kind of thought about it, but you know, like most people who have ever thought about writing a book, it’s like, yeah, okay. Yeah, I’ll think about it, but probably will never do it. Well, as I kept telling the story, and through Service Roundtable and Service Nation Alliance, you know, I met Kenny Chapman and became good friends with Kenny, and Kenny is a published author. And then I met Mark Madison and Mark’s also a published author and talking to them, they kept really pushing me. We want to see you write a book, you got a great story, we’d love to see it. So that was 2014 when they really started pushing me to write it. So I went and interviewed my mom, right about 2014, 2015, because the book started before I was even born because I was not supposed to be born. So I interviewed my mom in 2015, and then I just sat on it and couldn’t get anywhere.

Well, 2018, when I started stepping away from CPI and doing coaching, I got a client in San Clemente, California. And I went down and was coaching him personally, and business-wise. And then right after CPI bought me out, I was talking to that client and we were talking about, think it’s 2019, and I said, well, have you done a planning strategy meeting? He said, no. He owns a $10 million company. I’m like, “you should sit down with your management team, and sit and plan out your year, and go over it and figure out what you want your year to look like.” And he’s like, “well, I’ve never done that.” I said, “okay. I’ll come out and facilitate it.” So I was living in Arizona at the time, I drove out there and met with him and said, “hey, I don’t want to do it at your office, let’s do it off site.” He goes, “okay.” His office manager’s dad had a clubhouse that we were going to go do it at.

So January 24th, 2019, we leave his place, and we go down to the Pacific Coast Highway. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been to San Clemente, California, but it’s a beautiful little beach town. It’s the Southernmost beach town in Orange County. And we go down to the Pacific Coast Highway, we turn, we start going north and we’re driving along, pretty soon, we’re going to Dana Point, by now, I’m looking at my watch and I’m going, come on, Mike, where are we going? You know, we’re wasting time here. We turn, we start going up Laguna Canyon, and as we go up it, I get this feeling and that sensation that comes over me, that I can’t explain. And I was like, oh my God! We get to the top of the canyon, we pull into this place, this little clubhouse, and we get out, and I’m standing there and I’m just kind of dazed. Mike comes up to me and he goes, “what’s wrong?” I go, “I don’t know”, he said, “what do you mean?” I go, “I can’t explain it, I just had this sensation come over me, I can’t explain.” He goes, “why?” 29 years ago, I left this canyon, I was dead broke and I was an alcoholic. And I said, I’d never come back here, here I am back here, 29 years later coaching you, on what I’ve learned in those 29 years. I sat down the next week and started writing the book, now it’s done in a month and a half.

David Heimer: Wow! What a dramatic circle of life, right?

Kelly Schols: Crazy, absolutely crazy. I mean, up until that point, you know, writing a book was just a fairy tale. But once I had that circle of life that, for me, it was just, yeah. I literally sat down for a month and a half, pen to paper, I had the first transcript done. I like to call it a book of hope and inspiration, it’s a book about my life story, what I’ve been through, how I got through it, what I had to do to get through it. At the end of the book I have, what’s called the 10 renegade laws of success. When I was younger, I was, let’s say, not your price student, not your price kid. So I’ve been through a lot, you know, from alcoholism to losing my wife, things in business, different things. But through that, you know, there’s 10 rules that I’ve kind of followed my whole life. And, you know, I believe if you adhere to those laws and those rules that you can get through anything, and get through it brighter than what you went into it. Number one is, work hard. Number two is, set goals. Number three is, seize opportunities. Number four is, be adaptable to change. Number five is, watch your money. Six is, learn what you can. Seven is to believe in yourself. Eight, get out of your comfort zone. Nine, focus on your family and give back to the community and ten, blow through the naysayers.

David Heimer: What a great time to come out with this book. You know, here we are in the middle of this pandemic. The economy is going through a retraction of some sort, hopefully not too long, but a number of companies are feeling the pain, people are nervous. I think about the first time that I ever went through something like that, you know, and it really scared me. But you know, after you’ve been through a few of these, you’ve lived a while, you view them somewhat differently. And I think a person that has been through as much as you have, can contribute a lot. And so I think the timing of this book is perfect. I think people should rush out and get it and read it. And I think it’s going to help them get through this period.

Kelly Schols: I hope so. And I mean, that’s why I wrote the book, like I said, I’ve been through a lot, I’ve had a lot of people help me get through what I’ve been through, and you know, if I can help somebody get through something, that’s what it’s about. You know, like I said, people have helped me, so it’s my turn to help other people.

David Heimer: That came out really powerfully, I think, in your keynote speech at Service World Expo. I don’t know if I told you this or not, but my wife was there on the front row with me. You did a great story about being prepared, and how being prepared made a big difference for you, and what some of that preparation needs to be. She leaned over to me, she said, “we have to get our wills, re-done.” And so we have, and we’ve done a few other things, also as a result of that. So on a personal basis, that was a very good speech for us to attend, but it was good in so many other ways. I heard a lot of great things about it. Where can people get this book?

Kelly Schols: They can get it off of Amazon or they can go to my website, Kellyschols.com. That’s K E L L Y S C H O L S.com. Or they can get it through the Service Roundtable.

David Heimer: Oh yeah, a whole, thank you, shameless plug here. Shop.serviceroundtable.com. Any of the above.

Kelly Schols: Any of the above. The audible should be on within a week or so. I’ve already reached {inaudible 19:59}, had it edited and everything, so it will be out as well.

David Heimer: Fantastic! Thank you for doing an audible version. Everybody in our industry, thanks you for doing an audible version.

Kelly Schols: It wasn’t the easiest. But I’ll thank myself too.

David Heimer: Yeah. We’re an industry of people that like to listen to books, because you know, a fair amount of car time and other things. So, in addition to book writing, what else are you up to?

Kelly Schols: Well, right now, with what’s going on with the economy, not doing much speaking, people aren’t bringing in any speakers right now. So that’s a little tough.

David Heimer: We’re all staying six feet away from each other.

Kelly Schols: Yeah. Like you said earlier, you know, I’ve been through a lot of things and it kind of puts a perspective on it. And even with this COVID-19 that’s going on right now, you know, people gotta stop panicking, stop watching the news, I mean, we’re going to get through this. This country has been through a lot, and they’re going to get through this as well. And the more you panic, the more it doesn’t help people, it doesn’t help yourself. It doesn’t help anybody else and there’s just way too much panic going on with it right now.

David Heimer: Yeah, I agree. We’ll get through this.

Kelly Schols: Yeah, exactly. Another thing I’m doing is financial classes. So before the COVID hit, I had done some financial classes all over the country. I’d done it in Colorado, Atlanta, Florida. And I go in and work with owners and their team members. And I have a two-hour class that I can do or a six-hour workshop, and it’s on financial literacy, and it’s to teach employees how to get out of debt, how to budget, how to save. And that has been very successful, very wholesaling for me, and the kickback and the feedback I’ve been getting from the owners and the employees is incredible.

David Heimer: You started doing that in your own company, right?

Kelly Schols: Yeah.

David Heimer: That’s a really powerful story. Can you tell us just a little bit about that?

Kelly Schols: Sure! So in 2014, my old company, CPI was very big into training and still is to this day. But one thing that I always did is, every week we would have one day of personal development training. So in 2014, Brad and I were talking about what we could do for personal development. And he said, “Hey, take a look at Dave Ramsey’s stuff.” And I’m like, “well, who’s Dave Ramsey?” So he told me about it. So I checked into it and after checking into it, I’m like, oh my God, I’ve lived those financial principles my whole life. Well, my whole life since I quit drinking anyway. So I started, yeah, so I jumped in and found out that Dave Ramsey had a program at the time called core financial wellness. He teaches his Financial Peace University all over the world. But Core Financial Wellness was for employee-based financial wellness. So I dug into it and thought, you know what, we’re going to teach this to the employees. So I became a facilitator for it, I took 14 employees at the time, and did an eight-week class. When we started the class, there was $186,000 in debt between the 14 employees, not including mortgages. In eight weeks when we finished, that debt was down to $146,000.

David Heimer: Wow! That’s awesome.

Kelly Schols: So two years later, I went to do it again and didn’t have the interest in it. So I thought, you know what, I’m going to take it a step further. So I went back to Nashville, where Dave Ramsey’s headquarter is and became a Financial Master Coach. So now what I’m doing, and I’m not an employee of Ramsey, it’s just some master coach through him. But, through Dave Ramsey’s stuff, what I’ve learned is, Dave teaches seven principles to financial freedom. Number one is, a thousand-dollar emergency fund. Number two is, get rid of your debt. Number three is, get three to six months of expenses for an emergency fund. Number four is, pay off your house. Five, save for college. Six, save for retirement, and then seven, build wealth. While he’s teaching it, you’d do steps one through three. And then once you’re through step three, do step four, five and six, all in conjunction with each other, which is pay off your house, pay for college, save for retirement.

And what I’ve found, teaching that throughout the country is, it loses most people. So many people can not imagine paying off their house or paying for college before college or retirement. It just gets too heavy for them. So what I’ve done is I broke it down more simply. I teach the habits of money, the difference between wants and needs, the relationship between money and husband and spouse. When it comes to money, how to get an emergency fund, how to budget and how to get out of debt. And if I can teach people those core principles, it can change their life forever.

David Heimer: Yeah.

Kelly Schols: My wife and I, you know, before she passed away, well, 24 years old, I was broke and an alcoholic, by the time I was 40, I was completely debt-free and a multimillionaire and I did that.

David Heimer: It’s quite a turnaround in 16 years.

Kelly Schols: Yeah. And it was because my wife and I lived those principles, and we communicated very well together on what we wanted to accomplish, and how we were going to accomplish it.

David Heimer: And now you teach that. A number of our members have offered financial training for their employees and the results have been fantastic. It makes them happier, more productive employees, and good for the employees, good for their families and good for the company, frankly. So I would advise anybody that is listening and interested in it. You should get in touch with Kelly and learn how to do this. And so Kelly, if someone wanted to get in touch with you, what would be the best way to do that?

Kelly Schols: The best way would be Kellyschols.com. That’s K E L L Y S C H O L S.com. Or they can call or text me at 360-770-9810.

David Heimer: So if they go to the website, is there a ‘contact me’ button or something like that?

Kelly Schols: Yeah, Contact me there. It shows everything that I do and you can get a hold of me through there.

David Heimer: This has been fantastic. It’s so good to reconnect with you and hear all this. I’m ordering the book today, I look forward to reading it. I know it’s going to be great, just like everything else you do. So, thanks again.

Kelly Heimer: Thanks David.

Outro: We’re always looking for good ideas and interviews for our podcast. If you have an idea or maybe you think you should be interviewed, just shoot an email to profilesinprosperity@serviceroundtable.com. That’s profilesinprosperity@serviceroundtable.com. If you think what we’re doing has any value, it would be very helpful if you would give us a great rating on iTunes. Thanks for your support. Hope to see you again soon. Bye.