Welcome to Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Benner as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make their living in the digital world. Now let's join your host Phil Benner as your special guest today on Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast.

Welcome to another enlightening episode of invest in yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. I'm your host, feel better the podcast, Mocha. And today, we have an extraordinary guest who is dedicated to helping others unlock their fuel potential and achieve their business dreams. Our guest hails from a hails from humble beginnings, a small Alabama town, but his journey is a powerful testament to their transformational power of perseverance and ambition. Our our guest is grown a small bit is a grown small business owner, growth strategist, and business coach with nearly a decade of experience. He has led a small team within the architectural and engineering in industry to achieve 7 figures of financial success. His expertise has been pivotal in helping aspiring business owners start their ventures and assisting existing small business owners in expanding across various industries, including construction, home services, consulting, insurance, cinematography, my specialty, or my love, hospitality, ecommerce, and so much more. His passion for personal and professional growth is fueled by his love for reading works by renowned self help authors and entrepreneurs.

He firmly believes that everyone has the seeds of greatness within them. And with the right nurturing, anyone can grow into the successful person and business owner they aspire to be. His early struggles in entrepreneurship inspired him to write a book aiming to fill the gap of accessible mentors and coaches. His mission is to minimize mistakes for new entrepreneurs, expand their thinking, and foster a productive and positive mindset towards overcoming business challenges. He's committed to being an active part of the solution, providing guidance and support for those who feel stagnant and uncertain about their path to success. So get ready to be inspired and empowered by his insightfulness and expertise. So please join me in welcoming the remarkable Jonathan Clark to invest in yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. Jonathan, welcome to the show.

Man. I appreciate that that remarkable, extraordinary introduction, man. Couldn't have said it better myself. Right?

Well, I I I that's my my audience knows. I grew up in in love with the nineties rap, and I could never drop bars. That's as we can clearly see, I'm a little, off color for it. But I always love the hype men's. They were my favorite because they could hype up the crowd and then step off, and they still got the same love. So I look at myself as the the hype man of entrepreneurs. I love hyping you guys up because you are doing amazing work in the world of entrepreneur and changing the changing people's lives. So that I'm I'm I'm I'm all up for hyping them up with the most amazing intros.

So, John, thank you for that. But we're gonna jump right into it. I wanna know what made you decide to be an arc? First of all, be an architect, and then become an entrepreneur architect. Because because other being an architect, you work for someone else and you can go, I got my 9 to 5. I'm loving it. No stress about being owning a business or managing a business. But you're like, nuh-uh. Not this guy.

I'm opening my own firm. I'm doing all this, and then you jump into the digital world. So let's start with why did you become an entrepreneur?

Well well, Phil, yeah, I appreciate those, bars of introduction, man. No. Those those are great questions. So my my story, I think, really starts, man, at when I was a young kid. So to talk about first kinda where I came from and what it what inspired me to just, wanna get into architecture and then eventually, you know, get into business, etcetera. So, as you stated, like, I I grew up in a small town Alabama, for most people that that know the Alabama geography. It's, on the western side of the small city called York, Alabama. It's, if if people know football team, University of Alabama, we're we're about maybe 45 minutes from there.

So I I grew up there, man, and, my mom worked in banking pretty much all her life. My my dad was in the army at the time. So he was he was he was kinda in and out, you know, how of housewives. And so, my mom really for the most part, when we were really young, took care of us. But, as I got older, you know, I got to spend more time with my dad and develop a relationship with him. But but during that time, and I, I had 3 brothers, at the time, so it was 4 of us, all boys. And my mom, I don't to this day, man, I still don't know how she did it. Like

I I I was about to ask. Like, your mom's a super like, she's Wonder Woman on steroids taking care

of her.

Like, 3 boys?