Join host Steven Pesavento in a thought-provoking conversation with guest Knolly Williams as they explore the journey of aligning personal purpose with financial success. Discover how to break free from societal expectations, connect with your true self, and create a life by design. Gain insights into the power of self-awareness, leverage, and the 10% that truly moves the needle in your business. In this episode, you'll learn how to balance the drive for financial prosperity with the desire to make a meaningful impact, and how naming your number can lead to a life of real freedom and fulfillment.
Key Takeaways
Resources Mentioned
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About our Guest:
Knolly Williams is a visionary entrepreneur, author, and speaker who has been teaching and coaching since the age of 18. With a background spanning multiple successful businesses and industries, Knolly is a firm believer that financial success and making a positive impact can go hand in hand. He is the author of "3 Hours a Day: How to Successfully Create and Maintain the Lifestyle of Your Dreams," a book that guides entrepreneurs on achieving more by doing less and finding fulfillment through alignment with purpose. As a thought leader in business and mindset, Knolly has transformed countless lives by helping individuals discover their superpower and create a life of real significance. Connect with Knolly Williams to unlock the keys to a purposeful and prosperous life.
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00;00;00;01 - 00;00;53;03
Steven Pesavento
You have them realize that that well, that belief isn't true. And there's actually a bunch of other beliefs that could serve you even more impact fully. And yet it also didn't mean that she needed to change her career in order to do more of that work.
00;00;53;05 - 00;00;58;05
Steven Pesavento
I'm excited to have Knolly Williams in the studio. How you doing today? Knolly.
00;00;58;07 - 00;01;03;02
Knolly Williams
Steven. I'm super excited to be here. Man Name your number, baby. Let's go.
00;01;03;04 - 00;01;22;19
Steven Pesavento
Man. I'm excited to talk to you because I feel like you're a guy who's you've built a number of businesses, you've had a lot of success, and yet you've also created a life, a life that you're really excited about living, one that you've truly designed. And, you know, at the core, naming your number is really all about getting clear on what you want from your life.
00;01;22;19 - 00;01;39;13
Steven Pesavento
And then understanding, drawing that line in the sand, what do you actually need to earn to be able to live that life and then going out and creating it? And so, you know, right now what I want to talk about today is, you know, I'm in a place where, you know, I'm having a lot of success. I'm I'm making some great money.
00;01;39;13 - 00;02;07;05
Steven Pesavento
I'm helping a lot of people. And yet I feel this conflict. And so I want to talk a little bit about that conflict that I feel I love, too. And get some insights from you because I feel like a lot of people are going through this at some point in their life or will in the future in that conflict that I'm feeling as I've built a business, that the core focus is making money, making other people money, making our team, money making the company money.
00;02;07;07 - 00;02;27;14
Steven Pesavento
And it's really fun. You know, it's been a fun journey, you know, done really good with it. And yet at the at the same time, I'm noticing the more that I connect to Spirit, the more that I connect to who I truly am and what my purpose is that I'm really here to make an impact, here to be able to help people get what they need and get where they want in life.
00;02;27;16 - 00;02;50;14
Steven Pesavento
And we definitely do that in this business. But I'd love to talk to you a little bit about how you've gone through the process personally, discovering what your purpose is, discovering how you can help other people, because I know that's something you're really passionate about and how you balance that between the drives of business and capitalism and making a lot of money, which is a lot of fun.
00;02;50;17 - 00;02;56;11
Steven Pesavento
And then the drive towards really helping make a difference in the world and in people's lives, you know?
00;02;56;12 - 00;03;20;25
Knolly Williams
Steve And that's a such a big topic, but it really is my favorite topic I've been in, so I've been teaching for since the age of 18, and I actually taught the Bible long that longer than I taught any other subject. Now I'm so enamored the last probably 7 to 10 years in quantum physics, which is a lot of what I love to teach mindset and but I also love to make money.
00;03;20;25 - 00;03;43;11
Knolly Williams
And I started making money at the age of 12 and I learned that I loved it at the age of 12. Back then, you know, I would subscribe to Small Business Opportunities magazine, and none of the none of my other friends were subscribing to this magazine. And so I never let on that I that I was a subscriber that I had, you know, that I was subscribing to it.
00;03;43;14 - 00;04;07;05
Knolly Williams
But I always been enamored with both, you know, helping others. Well, actually, it was really about making money initially. That's all it was. And eventually I came to realize that we're actually here for three reasons. Number one, we're here to to be where human beings, not human doings. We're here to have an experience, human beings. So we're here to be.
00;04;07;07 - 00;04;27;01
Knolly Williams
Secondly, we're here to do we have a mission, we have a purpose. And then thirdly, we're here to give we're here to share all the knowledge and information that we have with other people. And I really believe we can do it all. I don't think that there is like, okay, you can make money over here and you can give back and share over there.
00;04;27;03 - 00;04;46;21
Knolly Williams
I think it's all it can all be one in the same. If you set the right outcome from the beginning or you set the right intention. And so but it took me a while, Stephen, to really because I was at the same point in my thirties, I had a I had made my first million dollars when I was 29 years old.
00;04;46;24 - 00;05;11;05
Knolly Williams
I had a very successful company. I was making 150,000 a month and I was I had bought a six bed, seven bedroom home, 6000 square feet when I was 26 years old. I mean, I was on it, man. And but it was just all about stacking, you know, stacking. And even though it was it was ministry based, but the money kind of overshadowed a lot of it.
00;05;11;08 - 00;05;28;14
Knolly Williams
And I didn't teach other people what I did. I didn't teach them what I knew. I didn't teach them what I learned. And it was very empty. And now when I coach people, I say, you know, I can teach you how to make $1,000,000 or a million a year or however much you want, but you'll just be another miserable millionaire.
00;05;28;16 - 00;05;42;24
Knolly Williams
What you really want to learn is your purpose, your identity, who you are, why you're here, and then you want to build your business. On top of that, I call it Hone Your Superpower. That's that's the title. I've given it.
00;05;42;26 - 00;06;04;08
Steven Pesavento
Yeah. But I think there's something so powerful in that because I've gone through a similar journey and come to realize, you know, the gifts, the superpowers, as you call them, that I have. And I love that feeling of helping other people realize what their purpose is, what they're actually here for. And yet what's interesting is what attracts people into my world is they're looking to make a change in their life.
00;06;04;08 - 00;06;22;20
Steven Pesavento
They're looking to make more money. They're looking to get out of the job, that they don't love to do something that they really do. And so it always for for me in particular, it's always been attracted by, you know, that carrot of making a lot of money. And so sometimes what I've noticed is that that can muddy the waters.
00;06;22;20 - 00;06;43;09
Steven Pesavento
It's like the impact is the real driving force, yet the money is the thing that's actually attracting people in wanting to make that change. When you're working with a client yourself, how would you advise that they, you know, navigate that? Because I feel like a lot of people, they want to make an impact. They want to do something meaningful.
00;06;43;09 - 00;06;54;19
Steven Pesavento
They want to have a phenomenal family. Yet they have this draw, this feeling that it needs to be all about the money because they're so focused on safety and scarcity and insecurity.
00;06;54;22 - 00;07;16;11
Knolly Williams
Yeah, and it's interesting that the more money you make and as you start to learn the principles of money and the science behind making money, you start to learn that it's so easy to make money. I mean, once you're on this side where you understand it fundamentally at the quantum level, there is almost nowhere that I could go.
00;07;16;11 - 00;07;38;08
Knolly Williams
I believe in not make money, like with what I've learned and I know you feel the same way. And so so that piece of it. But when you don't have when you're coming from a standpoint of lack and this is why I teach my students to be debt free in as much as possible, because if you're not debt free, lack will dictate your decisions.
00;07;38;10 - 00;08;01;06
Knolly Williams
And when you make decisions from a standpoint of lack, those decisions can ultimately turn out to be very poor in the grand scheme of what you should or could be doing. You know, you hit it on the head statement at the beginning. It's all about finding out who you are, what is your superpower, what do give you an example?
00;08;01;09 - 00;08;20;29
Knolly Williams
You know, I used to watch the what now it's The Avengers is kind of the more popular one, but it was the Justice League when I was growing up. Okay. It was Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and others that would fight crime together. And they were pretty bad ass by themselves. But when you put them together, forget about it.
00;08;21;01 - 00;08;48;17
Knolly Williams
However, each one had a particular skill and the others had other skills, right? So there's certain situations you wouldn't send Superman into. You know, there was kryptonite around. Or so now, if I had a stealth mission, I'm not going to send the Incredible Hulk. You know, because, you know, if I'm if I'm on The Avengers because he doesn't know how to be stealthy, you know, I'm going to send Ant-Man or somebody, you know, somebody that knows how to maneuver.
00;08;48;24 - 00;09;10;29
Knolly Williams
But because because Hulk, all he knows how to do is smash stuff, which is a great skill. But but that may not be the skill that's needed. And so when you when you come to understand who you are, that's the key. That's the main thing. And then you build your business on top of that. Now, not only do we have a rock in business, but we have a very, very happy life.
00;09;11;01 - 00;09;34;08
Knolly Williams
You know, in my from what I've observed, my belief is that happiness is a byproduct of living. Your purpose. So you can have all the money in the world. I mean, I made my first million dollars over 20 years ago and I made many, many million sense. But if I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do on this realm, in this realm, then I'm not going to be happy at the same time while I'm making millions.
00;09;34;13 - 00;09;52;12
Knolly Williams
And you can do both. So but it has to start with, you know, who you are at the very core. And honestly, you know, once you once you know who you are, your why becomes very apparent. You're your why becomes very obvious, you know.
00;09;52;15 - 00;10;09;20
Steven Pesavento
And it takes that self-awareness, it takes that self-discovery to get to the point to being able to be clear on who you are, what your gift is, and what you can do. And the reason that this relates to investing, the reason this relates to creating the life you want is because you can go out and make the investments.
00;10;09;23 - 00;10;38;03
Steven Pesavento
You can go buy real estate. You can invest in private equity. You can do the different things that are going to allow you to be able to be financially free. But if you're not in alignment, if you don't know what you want and why you want it, what your purpose is and what's actually driving you, you're going to end up getting to that point where you create all the things you thought you wanted, but because you didn't know yourself or you weren't clear on what you actually wanted, that there's going to be kind of a missing feeling that, yes.
00;10;38;06 - 00;11;09;12
Knolly Williams
Yeah. And it's basically disillusion, disenchantment, you'll be disappointed. And and at the end of the day, there'll be a life of regret. You know, Bronny, where she wrote a book called The Five Regrets of the Dying, and she was a palliative care nurse. And I think in Australia she worked only with people in their last 12 years of 12 weeks of life, their last 12 weeks of life, and she worked with hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of these people.
00;11;09;15 - 00;11;28;25
Knolly Williams
And she came to understand that there were five things that they regretted as they were taking their last breath on their deathbed. And the number one regret, Steve, is so incredible. The number one regret that people had is I wish I'd had the courage to live a life that was true to myself, not the life others wanted for me.
00;11;28;27 - 00;11;47;23
Knolly Williams
And most of you listening right now, or some of you, or many of you, or maybe even you right now listening. You're living a life that someone else designed for you. It's not the life that you designed. Maybe, you know, your parents wanted you to go to a certain school, so you went to that school and as a result, you met the person you married.
00;11;47;23 - 00;12;10;16
Knolly Williams
And then that job opened up over there. Now there's nothing that can't be unraveled and things can work out and can work for your good, even if it was not what you ultimately probably would have been the best choice for you. But when you live a life by design instead of by default, you live a better life. Now, listen to the second biggest regret of those on their deathbed.
00;12;10;18 - 00;12;32;10
Knolly Williams
The number two. Number one. I wish I had lived my life, figured out who I am and live who I am. My purpose. And number two, Steven, the number two regret of all is I wish I hadn't worked so hard. And and that's one of the big reasons I wrote 3 hours a day, because entrepreneurs have to know that there is an easier way to do business.
00;12;32;13 - 00;12;57;01
Knolly Williams
Now, the last thing I want to say on that is don't get the idea that because there can be fear here where it's like, Well, what if I discover that, you know, I like doing this and then I'm totally going to go into some other field where I make no money? That's not really how it works. It's basically what a what people don't understand is they're you're you're confusing what you do with who you are.
00;12;57;01 - 00;13;21;10
Knolly Williams
What you do is not who you are. And I've said this for years that, you know, I've been who I am authentically, when I was in the music business, did that for ten years, were very successful. I did it and I started that company when I was 23. At 33, I got in the real estate business and was very successful, sold over a thousand homes in my first ten years, became the number one solo real estate agent in Austin, Texas.
00;13;21;10 - 00;13;47;23
Knolly Williams
Out of almost 10,000 agents, I was 9800 when the Austin Business Journal came out with a report and I was number one in the city. So very successful there. I got into the in the seminar business and very successful in that. And the reality is I was still doing the same thing. If you put me in plumbing, selling plumbing parts that I'm going to be who I am doing that so you can take who you are.
00;13;47;23 - 00;14;10;02
Knolly Williams
What you do is just a conduit for who you are. Okay? So don't get don't get the idea that you're going to have to switch professions or do something else. You might, but most likely, you know, unless you've made some really bad choices, you're probably be able to kind of stay where you are and just re sort of purpose your life.
00;14;10;04 - 00;14;13;15
Knolly Williams
You know, we can get into how to do that as well, you know?
00;14;13;18 - 00;14;41;24
Steven Pesavento
Yeah, I think I think we will because I think it's really powerful. But what, what I what I'm really taking away and what I hope that other people are hearing is that once you get clear on who you are. Right. And part of naming your number is actually getting clear on what you want from your life, what are your gifts, what you can do with those gifts, then what you are able to then create in your life is a place where you're in so much better alignment.
00;14;41;27 - 00;15;04;16
Steven Pesavento
You know, I had a great coaching call with a client yesterday and she was very successful. She was making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and yet she felt like she wasn't and she felt like she was drawn towards doing more impact work. She enjoyed the volunteering that she was doing, and she had this belief, this belief that it was impossible for her to do impactful work and make money doing it right.
00;15;04;16 - 00;15;29;27
Steven Pesavento
And and through the process of of what always happens when you're coaching somebody is you have them realize that that well, that belief isn't true and there's actually a bunch of other beliefs that could serve you even more impact fully. And yet it also didn't mean that she needed to change her career in order to do more of that work, although it's an option that she had that she didn't even think was available.
00;15;30;01 - 00;15;53;25
Steven Pesavento
Right. And so what I'm curious for you and is you're a guy who's been very intentional. You've created a life by design. Have you named your number drawn that line in the sand about how much you need to earn in order to create the life you want? And more importantly than talking about the number, what did that do for you when you made that decision that this was the line and what came from that?
00;15;53;25 - 00;15;55;20
Steven Pesavento
What focus came from that?
00;15;55;23 - 00;16;14;01
Knolly Williams
Yeah. So I've been teaching this for so long and I actually call it a monthly nut. And this is this is a concept that I've been teaching for years and years and years. And I ask people what your monthly nut because you know, what you're talking about is. I'll give an example. So when I was 45, I paid off my house.
00;16;14;03 - 00;16;34;00
Knolly Williams
I was completely debt free. All all other debt had already been paid and I paid off my house. Some, like, okay, I did it. I did, you know, and I you know, I'm yelling debt, I'm debt free and I'm all excited. But then the bills kept coming in. So I said, what minute there's residual bills, maybe I need to create residual income.
00;16;34;02 - 00;16;56;28
Knolly Williams
Yeah, I started that's when I started to realize that, you know, you can you can be debt free, which is great. It's a great space to be in. I love it. And also there's another level, which is what you teach. Steven is like your name, your number. So my number, you know, honestly, and I've made so much more than this, but 20,000 a month for me is comfort.
00;16;57;04 - 00;17;18;13
Knolly Williams
Okay, I'm already there. I'm already it's residual. If if I don't if I literally am not going to do this. But if I go to Europe for six months or seven months or eight months, I've got that residual income coming in every single month and I don't have to work for a living anymore. But now my new number is 40,000.
00;17;18;13 - 00;17;42;28
Knolly Williams
I see. Why not 10,000 a week sounds better to me. And actually, I've been in a place where I was making 150,000 a month, but I had all these expenses. I had a lot of overhead. You know, I had 14 employees, 18 artists on my label. I was spending 160 was making 150. So so, so having so so now my number is 40,000 a month.
00;17;42;28 - 00;18;05;02
Knolly Williams
And so I'm working toward that number now. I don't need that much, but it's but what I've always taught people is if you can have your monthly nut covered, just your basic expenses, then all the other income that you create can go toward, you know, you your overhead. And I actually teach it in my book how to do that.
00;18;05;05 - 00;18;27;01
Knolly Williams
You have to create other this is getting a little off track but but a lot of people don't realize that the money that you seek is all around you. For example, people sometimes when I'm coaching, they say, Well, I can't afford that. You know, I can't afford to hire someone. You tell me to delegate. I say, Well, the better question is how can I afford it?
00;18;27;01 - 00;18;44;07
Knolly Williams
Not I can't afford it. When you say I can't afford it, that's an affirmation that goes straight to your subconscious mind and it progress. It continues to program in running that program. Okay, We can't afford it, he says. We can't afford this. So let's not, you know, let's not even create let's not create the ideas that will create the income.
00;18;44;09 - 00;19;04;15
Knolly Williams
So to give an example, when I hire a VA, the champion, the air in the Philippines, $1,000 a month to do video editing, let's just in sample. So I do have a video editor that does video editing for me and I created I have a group of, you know, a group of entrepreneurs, and I went to them and I said, Hey, would you like video editing?
00;19;04;15 - 00;19;22;08
Knolly Williams
Because I don't need to go full time. It's $300 a month. You'll do any video editing you want. And I got five people to sign up. That's 1500 dollars a month coming in. I'm paying him a thousand. So all of my video and it takes him about 20% of his time to do the work for those five and the rest of the 80%.
00;19;22;08 - 00;19;40;12
Knolly Williams
He can do all my stuff. So if you're creative and you can think of ways to not have to pay people out of your own pocket or create an additional revenue stream for your VA or whoever you leverage, you know, you just got to be smarter about the way you do it. But yeah, that's my that's my monthly number.
00;19;40;14 - 00;19;50;09
Steven Pesavento
Well, it's getting out of the box and that's one of the things that's so powerful about your new book, 3 Hours a Day. Where can people find that? I know it just was released recently. Knowledge.
00;19;50;12 - 00;20;13;21
Knolly Williams
Yeah, it's actually in large. You know, I walked in the Barnes and Noble in Austin and grabbed it. It's obviously it's on Amazon Kindle version just was released and the Audible was coming out very, very soon as well so so and it's you know, a lot for me I work 3 hours a day, but that's the ultimate when you look at there's a lot of scientific studies that have been done.
00;20;13;23 - 00;20;34;10
Knolly Williams
And when you look at even people that work like employees, the the study has shown that their average productivity in a day is about 3 hours. Even if they clock in 8 hours. We already know that if you give somebody 6 hours to do something or 7 hours or 8 hours or 3 hours, they'll get it done. Okay.
00;20;34;13 - 00;20;59;12
Knolly Williams
And there's a lot of experiments that have been done on that. And what I've come to discover is that 90% of what most entrepreneurs do, most of my coaching clients, whether they be a chiropractor, real estate agent, it doesn't matter 90% of the things that they do in their company are not really moving the needle. The 10% of what they do is what moves the needle 90%.
00;20;59;14 - 00;21;30;06
Knolly Williams
So I say, you know, focus only on the 10% or get yourself to a point where you can only have to focus on the 10% and all the other stuff, you know, putting out fires, you know, navigating through the weeds, maintaining status quo, all that stuff will be done by others. But but initially, you want to incorporate 3 hours a day into your current workday, you know, So there's there's only two things that a person should be doing.
00;21;30;09 - 00;21;33;12
Knolly Williams
And this is kind of going in a can we go on this real quick side road?
00;21;33;17 - 00;21;35;06
Steven Pesavento
I love to. Let's do it. Yeah.
00;21;35;09 - 00;21;58;08
Knolly Williams
So what I discovered is that, you know, when you start coaching people and you know this, Steven, because you coach thousands of entrepreneurs as well, you start to realize that all these entrepreneurs only have two problems and your business will only ever have two problems. You know, it's interesting because a lot of times we think, Man, my business has all these problems are going to solve all these issues.
00;21;58;10 - 00;22;24;18
Knolly Williams
But really, you only ever have two problems. Number one, you don't have enough money. Number two, you don't have enough time. It's one of the one of the two or both. Now, if your business has a money problem, that's cash flow. That's a cash flow issue and then also future wealth, then what you should be focusing on are two big picture priorities, only two, and that's generating leads and closing sales, closing appointments.
00;22;24;20 - 00;22;58;20
Knolly Williams
Those are really the only two things that you should both like. If you focus only on those two things, your business would grow. Okay? And if you gave up all the other stuff that you're doing, your business would still grow. Now, once you start becoming real good and you start generating business and you become you know, maybe top salesperson in your office or, you know, the top chiropractor in your city or whatever, then you're going to have a time problem because there's only unless you clone yourself, you're not going to be able to you're basically going to run out of the ability to continue to serve, and then you've got to duplicate so that at
00;22;58;20 - 00;23;28;10
Knolly Williams
that point, you know, you have a leverage issue, you know, time problem. This is solved through leverage. And what you'll be focused on, your two big picture priorities will be branding. You know, you'll be the brand ambassador. You know, you might not be putting hands on people and doing the adjustments anymore. You'll have a maybe a team of people doing that and you'll be on podcast, you'll be doing your YouTube channel, you'll be doing all the other stuff that you're doing to build your brand, and then you'll be focused on leadership, branding and leadership.
00;23;28;10 - 00;23;40;29
Knolly Williams
You'll be leading your team. Because the reality is, Steven, the bigger your business grows, the less you should have to do. The bigger you can grow it, the less you'll have. You should have to work.
00;23;41;01 - 00;23;58;18
Steven Pesavento
Yeah. And what's beautiful about realizing this is that what it does, not only in what you've done is such a good job in your book of really outlining is simple. Defining the path to success. What is it that's going to move the needle? Right. I'm going apply this in your personal life. You can apply it in your business.
00;23;58;24 - 00;24;17;18
Steven Pesavento
Yeah. What is it? The thing that you want. And then what is going to be the most valuable use of your personal time that's getting there? Right? You need more time. Well, then we need to hire some people. We need to get you focused on the things that are best for you. You need more money. Well, you need to be focused on sales and leads, right?
00;24;17;21 - 00;24;26;02
Steven Pesavento
When you simplify things down that path and you have that core focus, that's where really big changes start happening.
00;24;26;04 - 00;24;54;26
Knolly Williams
Yeah. I mean, when you when you think about it, many entrepreneurs, including like this one that you says very successful, a lot of times.
00;24;54;28 - 00;25;15;06
Steven Pesavento
Hey, this is Steve. And again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is the insider's newsletter. Would you enjoy getting a single email every week with some of my favorite things, including tips and strategies on how to get the most out of your life and your investments? Basically, what it is is some of the coolest things that I've discovered or I'm pondering when it comes to life.
00;25;15;10 - 00;25;31;00
Steven Pesavento
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