Transcript of How a Former Police Officer Cracked the CODE to Making MILLIONS – Shawn Greene’s Story

I had a great salary. I was doing well for myself.

What was well during that time, brother?

I had a six-figure salary that I thought was good.

Oh, it's decent. A lot of people out there make a six-figure, man. They live in life.

I had a nice house, about two cars. Once the bills were paid, I was like, Dude, have much to live on. I still never owned a business.

What was it that kept you stuck on analysis paralysis? The fear.

The fear of never owned a business, not knowing who had a business. The voice in my head was just saying, There's more to you. There's more to you. I called him up like, Hey, is that opportunity still available? He's like, Yeah, I was waiting for you. Then from that point on, it was just uphill from there.

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Level Podcast. This is Paul Alex. Today, we have another great interview. We have our guest, Sean Green. Sean Green is a former police officer turned serial entrepreneur that built multiple seven figures, guys. You You guys are going to love this industry, okay? Because it's coming up into 2026. Tax businesses. That's right. Everybody likes to talk about taxes. You guys know the reason why I moved to Puerto Rico? Because of taxes. We're going to go ahead and take a deep dive, not only into taxes, but Sean's background as a police officer and also his transition and his journey on how he was able to go ahead and build multiple seven figures here in the city of Philly. Sean, welcome to the show, brother.

Thanks for having me.

Brother. It's been a long time coming, man. It has been. We've been following each other for years on social media. Yes. Former police officers, serial entrepreneurs. I see you're doing your thing over there, dude. I mean, I'm proud of you, man. I'm glad that you're actually on the show, and I'm super excited to hear about your background. For my audience that is listening and watching right now, dude, who are you, number one.

Okay.

Then number two, let's start off in your background with law enforcement.

Absolutely. Sean Green. My background in law enforcement started when I was about 21 years old. I was all excited to become a police officer, excited to serve my community, and take care of people. I did well. Fle to the Police Academy, won the Physical Fitness Award in the Police Academy. I was just that guy who wanted to do everything the right way. That went well. I was in law enforcement for only about three to four years, but I just always knew there was more. There was more to me. I was a cop, but I was living paycheck to paycheck, dude. Yeah, literally. I was like, There's got to be another way. I had a college degree, and I was a law enforcement officer. But again, I just saw myself to do something more. My degree is in marketing, but I went into law enforcement. A lot of people ask me, How do you correlate marketing to law enforcement? But that's what I did. Then I went into... I didn't want to stay in law enforcement because I just felt like there was more to me. I I feel like I wanted to do more. I wanted to have more.

And honestly, I like money. Yeah.

And that's okay. A lot of people like to paint money as this bad thing and this greed thing. But correct me if I'm wrong, Sean, it comes down to our environment, right? Correct. Who Our parents are. We love our families and our parents and our loved ones and our friends, and they want to keep us all nice and cozy, right? But at the end of the day, staying safe is not going to make you rich or it's not going to build that life by design, right? Correct. So obviously, you saw more in yourself than what law enforcement was providing for you. And then what was the next move? So you were in law enforcement for four years. And then what year was this?

This year was Around 2006, '07.

Okay, so 2006-2007. And that was around the time where the economy crashed. Correct. During the real estate. Yes. So it was really bad. It was bad. Oh, man. Brother, I remember when that happened, man. Luckily, during that time, I was still in corporate America. It was right before I became a cop, a few years before. I remember. You went ahead and you transitioned. What did you get into right after law enforcement?

Great question. Right when I got out in law enforcement, I was still on that bridge. I went to the head of security in the casino down in Atlantic City. Did that for about a year. It was good. But then again, I still wanted more. So I took a job in sales. I was selling door-to-door at Katewell. Yeah. Knocking on doors and selling Katewell. I became the number one sales rep in the company within three months. I knew that I had some talent. That entered my career into sales. I did that for about three to four years, and then I went right into pharmaceutical sales. Well, actually, vision care, where I started selling contact lenses to eye doctors. I did that for a few years, about five years. Then there was still something just that bug in me saying, I just want something more. I had a great salary. I was doing well for myself.

But What is well during that time, brother?

I had a six-figure salary that I thought was good.

Oh, it's decent. A lot of people out there make their six figures, man. They live in life.

But I noticed I had a nice house, about two cars. Once the bills were paid, I was like, Dude, I have much to live on. That lit a fire in me where I wanted to do more. I said, There's more into me. That voice in my head was just saying, There's more to you. There's more to I started going to the International Franchise Expo every year with a buddy of mine that I used to work with. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had saved up some capital on my 401k. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I said, I want to do something.

How old were you during this time? Early '30s. Early '30s. So early '30s, your mindset has shifted. You entered into business. You learned that sales is one of the most valuable skills, and you just kept progressing. Now you're thinking about switching over to full-time entrepreneurship. Correct. Did you have any friends during that time that were encouraging you to get into entrepreneurship?

I had a buddy that I worked with. He wanted to own a business at some point, but I didn't have any friends. No one around me had owned any business. So it was new to me. It was a little bit foreign, so I didn't have anyone. Oh, wow. No.

Where do you think you got the mindset of, I need to become more?

It's always been there. It's always been something in me just says, There's more to you. There's just more. You can do more. You can become more. There's more for you. It's just a voice in my head that just kept saying, This is not it for you to just go to work every day, pay your bills, have $600 to live off of for the next two weeks. You understand what I'm saying? I didn't like that. I sought out for other opportunities.

Well, let me ask you, man. I interview a lot of successful entrepreneurs, you being one of them now. There's two paths that I usually see. One path is they come from an environment where people tell them, Hey, we love you. You could do anything you want in this life. Then there's the second path, and that's the School of Hard Knocks, where people just learn just based off of grit, discipline. They probably saw someone, they probably had a mentor. I know before social media and all that jazz, for a lot of us, I had a lot of mentors in law enforcement. I had a lot of mentors in sales. I even considered my parents, they tried to mentor me throughout when I was a kid. So did you have a mentor growing I didn't really have mentors, but my father pushed me.

My father pushed me hard. Sometimes he was so hard on me, I'd be like, This dude don't like me.

It's a good or bad thing.

But my dad was like, Your last name is Green. You will get straight A's in this house, and you will be the best. That's that. I'm like, Dude, I've never got an A in my life. Because I live with my mother. Then I left my mother's house and then moved with my father because they split early. Then he's just like, My father didn't really live Live by everything, all the code he told me to live by.

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But he pushed me to be the best, and that just lit a fire to Jess. I was self-discipline. I didn't need no one to tell me to do the right thing. I never smoked weed. I never did anything like that. I was just always on a straight path. That's because my father always pushed me to be the best. I would Give all the credit to him. As far as a mentor, business mentor, when I got in, I didn't have any.

Okay. What's your dad's name?

Ronald.

That's my dad. Ronald. That's my middle name. You did a great job, man. I love that. I love Yeah. All right, good. You start going into all these expos with a really good friend of yours. You guys start considering business. What happens next?

What happens next? I meet this guy. I have a great conversation with him. He's actually one I didn't know he was the owner of the business, but I just met him, had a great conversation, and I went home. I'm like, You know what? This is a nice guy. I don't know who he is, but he's a nice guy. He said, You know what? Why don't you come back for a meeting and just get a little more information about this business? I was Okay, you seem cool. I'll listen to what you have to say. About two weeks later, I came back. We had another meeting, but this time the meeting was at this nice fancy hotel, and he was actually sitting on the podium speaking. I was like, Well, this is just a nice guy talking. I thought he was just one of the reps, but he's speaking. When I walked outside, before I came in the building, it was just all these super cars outside. I'm like, What's really going on? It sparked my interest a little more. After the meeting, the interest meeting was nice. All the rau rau and everything. It sounds good, but I still never owned a business.

I went home and I was like, Let me think about it. I thought about it. Didn't really do anything with it for a year, honestly.

What was it that kept you stuck on analysis paralysis that year?

I guess the fear. The fear of not knowing, the fear of never owning a business, not knowing who had a business, and the fear of does this really work? Because I tried network marketing in the past and just like... I'm sure people have good stories and bad stories about network marketing. I just never made really money with it. So I was just like, you know.

So you had a bad taste in your mouth? Correct. Okay.

But I didn't know that there was something still in me. I remember that conversation. The guy just seemed so genuine. I called him up about a year, close to a year later. I was like, Hey, is that opportunity still available? He's like, Yeah, I was waiting for you. It's still available. I went to operations training. I was probably the guy who asked the most questions. After operations training, they said, You are going to probably be one of the most successful. We've never had nobody come and ask these many questions, and they're so in-tuned. Everything you asked was on point. Then from that point on, I opened one at my first store a few weeks after Operations Training. Then after that, it was just uphill from there.

The business concept. Let's talk about the business concept that you had opened after operations school. What exactly? I would break it You would break it down to a fifth grader because typically, my listeners, they're typically beginners that are looking for different opportunities. This is great. This might be an opportunity that a lot of people actually go ahead and get into because of you and your story. What would you say on just a simplified, I guess, summary of what exactly your business does?

What my business does is we do taxes on the low income. That's what we primary spend. I can do taxes for anyone. But our specialty, we open up stores in low income area. We're like the other... I don't really want to say a lot of names, but we're like the other, the Liberties, the Jackson Hughes, all those. We're like the big three, but we're a little bit smaller. You understand what I'm saying?

That's what we are. You're more niche down?

Correct.

Yeah. You're hyper-focused on low income. Why specifically low income?

We specifically focus on low income because low income is where we see we add more value, and we add more value because we're not the most expensive in the town, but we also do a lot for the community. Yeah.

No, that's good, man. You're able to help get back to the community and provide that level of service that they need. Now, you started that what year?

Came into business in first year was 2019.

In 2019, You opened your first franchise store? Correct. Then from there, how long did it take until you got your second, your third store up and running?

I opened that store. I had a store for two years. On the third year, I opened my second store. Then I had my second store for three years, and then opened my third store.

I love that. What would you say is the secret to your success now opening multiple franchises and now being able to scale that business into a multimillion dollar business? That's a lot. Let's get into it, man.

The secret to success, to be successful in this business is one, you got to follow instructions, got to follow the blueprint. There's a blueprint laid out, and we can talk about that. But just the biggest thing is being able to market your business to your customers. Okay. Some people have businesses that don't know who they're really marketing to. I market specifically to the customers that I want to grasp to. I'm not marketing to everyone. Yeah, low income.

Correct.

If you make a certain amount of money, you can come into the store, but I'm not really marketing to you. I can service you, but you're not going to be my main market.

How do you go ahead and go about marketing specifically to the low income? I know before the podcast, we were talking about boosting ads. Correct. So on the digital side, you're one of the first ones to do it within your market. So let's talk a little bit about that. When you first started with your first store, because right now that somebody is listening, hey, they might be a struggling tax consultant right now. Let's hear it. Tell me the sauce, right? So what would you tell them? I mean, took you from zero to the level of success that you're at now. Was it simply word of mouth, referrals? Was it great marketing? What was it exactly?

At first, we started off with guerrilla marketing. We were big at that. We were literally out door to door. I had hired a team who were canvassing, giving out flyers to the community. I had a strategic zip code that we working. We did that for a period of time. Then I saw that that was okay, but not really getting the sales that I wanted. Once I took it to social media, and I would specialize ads for these zip codes. I would specialize the zip codes for the communities that I wanted to come in. It was probably three or four zip codes that I knew that were close to one of the stores. Then when I boosted those ads and added the... Because customers didn't really want to come in. They didn't really want to come in, so I added the aspect of doing it virtually. When customers were able to just send electronically their information through a secure portal, they let us do it virtually, and then the sales went crazy. Oh, wow. Yeah. Once we added the virtual piece, that's when things went crazy because I could service anyone in America.

Yeah. Then how many people are you currently servicing right now?

We're at about 3,000 customers right now.

3,000 customers? Yeah. Wow. Are you currently helping other people build franchises like yours right now? Now, you went from being the karate kid to Mr. Miyagi, the taxes. Now, are you doing the exact same thing that your mentor showed you?

That's my next goal. I'm not doing it yet, so that's why I'm here. The next goal is to have others build their business and build a little faster. I know how to mentor where they can... All the negative things that I've been through, they can avoid that. I avoid the big learning curve that they would have or slow down that learning curve, speed it up or whatever. We can do that. Those are things that the next step I want to do is I want to mentor. I haven't started it yet, but that's something that I want to add.

What would you say culture in your line of work with having employees and having to go ahead and manage other people? How big is culture in your environment right now? Culture? Yeah. Does it play a big factor when building a team?

I believe it does. I believe the culture and how you treat your reps matter. I believe the culture and how you run everything matters. Because if I want someone to do something for me or do something for the business, I have to first show that I'm doing it and I can do it. I was able to build a good culture around my stores, just always leading by example because there's nothing that I ask you to do that I won't do myself. There's nothing. I know every aspect of the business. I didn't win the top franchisee in the country for nothing. I did it because I followed the blueprint. You understand what I'm saying? Yeah. Those are some of the things that helped me to be successful. The culture is very… I take that very seriously on how I treat people, how we run the stores. We run it like a tight ship. Following the blueprint, following the steps, and staying on track, those are some things that has helped us become number one.

Man, how are you hiring people now, man? I know me and myself, now being in a full-time entrepreneurship, For close to a little bit over six years now, that is still one of the hardest things I have issues with. I built three different businesses, man, but I still... I don't know if it's just a trust thing. It's just I've been burned a little bit before. But how are you finding good people to work with you?

That's been a challenge. That has been a challenge. But a lot of the reps that I hire There were referrals. They were referrals, but also they came in as customers. Oh, really? Yeah. What I do often is I'll send out ads on my Instagram because I have a couple of pages. I have my store and I have my personal. Then I'll boost ads on my store page. A lot of customers that's already been customers, they want to work for their business because they like how we've treated them. 50% of my employees have come from previous customers. They were previous customers.

I love that concept.

Yeah, I love giving back. I will hire someone who's come in, they see how we work. I don't want to say first before I look out, but I want to keep it in the culture first. I want to give opportunities to prior customers before I open up to everyone else.

That's a smart concept because here's the thing, they're able to talk from the experience. Correct. Now that they're going ahead and they're agreeing or providing the customer service to your new clients or your new prospects, they're able to talk from personal experience. Absolutely. That's the biggest thing, right? Sure. Do you believe that you yourself, that people come back and do business with you year after year because you give that extra personal touch?

Thousand %. Yeah? Thousand %. I could probably name every customer that walks in that building by their first name.

I love that.

Everyone. Because one thing I value is call the person by their first name. They won't forget. And say right. Most of my customers continue to come because they know I'm going to do it. I'm fair. I'm going to do their taxes right. I'm going to put them in the best scenario for their tax return.

Yes. When you go ahead and you greet somebody and they're like, Sean, that's the level of culture that you're showing your employees to go ahead and do at your business. Where did you learn that from? Is that from just personal experience? Is that from being in law enforcement? How did you learn how to be an actual leader instead of a manager?

Becoming a leader was just always internal. I was in sports. I was a four-time track champion. I was in law enforcement. I always knew how to lead, and I always knew how to treat everyone with respect. Respect goes a long way. No matter... Everyone has good days, everyone has bad days. But respect, people will remember how you... People forget names, they forget a lot of stuff, but they never forget how you make them feel. So respect goes A long way with me. Just being a leader is just something that I've always had in me. Just lead. But not just lead and try to tell people to do, be able to lead by example. When you can lead by example, people are going to trust you because they know, Oh, he'll pull his sleeves up and get dirty be right with us. Absolutely. I have so many customers that most of them want me to do their taxes. But I've gotten so big, I can't do everyone's taxes. But we've trained our reps, and I like to say reps, I don't like to say employees. We train our reps to the point where they know what I know, and they can do what I can do.

We've been successful because our customers are confident in us because they know that anyone who touches their return is going to do a magnificent job.

Then you're backing it. It's like a person. It's like A personal guarantee from Sean. Absolutely. I love that. Let's do a master class during this interview, okay? What would you tell somebody that is they're coming to you and they're like, Sean, I know you're going to be speaking at a conference soon, man. What would be the first couple of steps that I need to take as a brand new entrepreneur to launch my own tax business? What would be some key needle that you would give someone, especially in the beginner level, advice to go ahead and get started with that?

Well, first, they would have to set their business structure up. Once they have their business structured, then we can talk about how I can put you in a tax base where you can start making some money. My goal now is to take everything remote, make things a little bit easier. That's how it would start with those customers.

When you say remote, you're referring to not having to lease an office space, not having to rent an office space, and they're able to do it from their home. Correct.

Make money from home.

That's huge. Absolutely. Because I know now in 2025, a lot of people are looking for different opportunities to go ahead and start a business at home, right? Whether it's people can't afford to get babysitter's, I don't want to, right? It's expensive, man. So they got to do double duty. Absolutely. They could go ahead and start from home. Is this a special software, or is it like an academy or a trade school they have to go to in order to get... Do you have to get certified to do this?

Yeah, you got to get certified. If you're going to deal with low income, you have to get certified through the IRS. That's a simple training. Then you have to have something called a P10. It's a Preparer's Tax ID number. That's like $25 to get that. Then once you learn the software, which I can put a program together where we can teach you the software, you're pretty much up and running and ready to go. Once you have the software, you have your P10, and you just gain some customers, you start making money.

Oh, wow. How difficult from a level, I guess, of 1-10 being the most difficult, would you say it is to go ahead and get certified for this?

To get certified? It's very simple. You would just go online to the IRS, buy a P10, and anyone can let it go online and do it. If they want to do it right now, they can do it. There's no certification for that. Anyone can get that. But to do taxes, you would have to go through something called a due diligence training. That just shows like, Hey, you can do this or you can't do this. If someone comes in your store or if you want to do their return and you're live with them face-to-face, Is this their ID? Is this their documentation? Are these really their dependents? Like, those things you have- To verify. You have to verify that.

Yeah, because there's a lot of scams and all that that happens.

There's a ton. Now, the due diligence training. Now, once you go through that, you're saying, I understand that I'm not going to take this person's word for these are my dependents. You can't. You have to verify, Okay, what documentation did they provide you? Did they bring the ID? Did they have their other documentation to verify that they can properly claim that individual? Okay.

They go ahead and they get certified, they get the documents, and now they're able to run the business from home. Correct. What would be, I guess, the first step that you would recommend somebody to start marketing their business, especially being a remote tax business?

Social media. Social media is huge. We would go on a line, go social media. What I started to do is I boost ads, but it's not expensive. I mean, you can boost ads. Let's talk about that.

When you say boost ads, break it down to the person that does know nothing about marketing, brother, because I know you got a degree in marketing. Correct. You're more advanced than us. Go ahead and break down. When you say boosting ads, what do you mean?

I would go on, let's say, Instagram.

I would type up whatever I was looking for.

I was like, Hey, let's say, if you didn't work a W2 job, but you did have self-employment income, and you can verify it, and you have children, but you didn't work a W2 two job, I can get you a tax return.

Basically, you would be talking to a lot of home-based businesses? Correct. 1099, independent contractors. This is something that you would film almost like a selfie video, or would it be a post? What type of ad would you do this for?

Sometimes it'll just be a post, just written down a post.

You would just write it down?

Just write it down, post, and you'd be surprised. Something that can read in big bowl.

How simple?

Very simple. Then When I go on the Instagram, when I go to boost the ad, I would just say, These are the zip codes I want to market to. Then I would boost that ad. It would probably pay me like $5 a day, something like that. The reach within 30 days is going to be, I don't know, 30,000 touches. If I get 10% of 30,000, it's 300. I mean, that's a lot of sales. 300 sales would net you, depending on what you're charging, 300 sales in a tax season? Over 100,000.

Yeah. Yeah.

Easy.

Hey, guys. There you go. For all my current tax consultants, if you guys are looking a way to go ahead and boost your guys' sales to a multiple six to Let them figure revenue within your tax season, come and talk to Sean. You need to start an agency. Absolutely. Start ready to allow a tax for a marketing, brother. Absolutely. Charge your arm and a leg for I love it, too. No, I love that. So clarity. So just writing simple posts that people can understand, they can see. How do you pick the zip codes? Is it because... Do you do a little bit of research based on the income ratio?

Great question. I picked the zip codes 100% on the income. You can go to IRS and just see. You can just either Google what's the AGI? Agi just stands for adjusted gross income in that zip code. Once you see what they're making, if they're making 200,000 as Zip code, they're probably going to CPA. But if they're making 50,000 a little bit under, you could service that customer. Then I would just market those ads specifically to those Zip codes because I know that's where my clientele is going to come from.

Smart.

Then they start calling, and then we start taking those orders and getting those deals.

Love that. Then once they submit the information, you yourself, you're giving them a call, or are they jumping on a Zoom call? How does that work?

We have a couple of ways to do it now. If they want to jump on a call, we can jump on a call, like a Zoom call. If they feel more comfortable seeing us, if they don't want to come to one of the stores, we can get on the phone. We send all of our information through encrypted portals where no one literally can't get intercepted. That's how we keep everybody's documentation safe. We can do it. We could jump on a call if they're comfortable that way. We can go back and forth through Zoom We can do that.

I love that. You broke down the system of how to go ahead and create an ad, which is super-simplified that anyone could go ahead and understand it. Correct. You specific down to a niche, which your niche is more low income individuals. Then you do some research based on the zip code, based on the gross income of the zip code. Then that's how you target your avatar, your actual ideal client. Then you run the ads. Let's say you run $5 a day, you get 30,000 impressions or views, 10%, 300. Then, yeah, you got your cash flow. That's remarkable, man. Usually, when are your busy seasons for your business?

The months of January, February, March. You can do this in 90 days. Wow. Yeah, you can do it in 90 days. I mean, April, you have some customers coming in, but a lot of the low-income filers have already filed. That's where you can get primarily most of your business in those first three months.

Wow, that's amazing. Then for the rest of the year, are you guys going ahead and taking that off? What's the exact schedule that you guys follow as a tax business?

The rest of the year, believe it or not, there's a lot of people who just don't file. We keep our phones open. If someone wants to do taxes, we can do them all year. We're not one of those tax places that shut down right after tax. See us again. We are open all year long. Yeah.

Any plans on expanding more actual in-person locations for yourself in the three that you have?

That's a great question. It's a lot. At this point, I think that I can help more people do it remotely. At this point, I'm going to look to expand the business, yes, and scale more, but we're going to do it more on a remote online basis.

That's the That makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of other entrepreneurs in different industries. Alex Hromosi, for example, when he was doing gyms, he would help launch gyms. And he was going in person, flying into different states to help gym owners launch the gym. But then a very similar concept as yours right now, the way you're thinking, man, is just like, I think I could help people more digitally. And that's what he did. He's just like, You know I think I could help more people launch digitally. Absolutely. I think at scale, especially because you already have the blueprint, the process, you have the social proof. Oh, yeah, dude. It's going to be huge. And that's going to be remarkable. Listen, Sean, I love everything, dude. I love everything from your summary of law enforcement, how you transitioned. It's very real. A lot of people, you're not painting this picture of I was an overnight success at the age of 21, and now I have a Lambo, right? Definitely not. You went through your trials and tribulations, man. Absolutely. What would you tell somebody about leveling up their mindset in 2025, brother? What does it take to level up yourself as a man, but also an entrepreneur?

What would you say?

You've had some great questions. For one, surround yourself with positive people. Positive people. Don't be around people who are always complaining because that energy is contagious. Also, work on yourself. Work on yourself, do some self-help or self-help books. Ultimately, at the end of the day, you have to set yourself away from anything that's negative. Any of that negativity, you just got to let that go, the vices and all that, and believe in yourself. Work on fitness. I think fitness is huge because I think that if you're working on yourself that way, everything comes to you. Surround yourself with people who are doing better than you is going to help you out a lot. I like to say investing in yourself, whatever that means, investing in yourself. If you guys are around five people who aren't doing well in life, guess what? You're going to be the sixth. If you're around five people who are drinking every day, you're going to be the sixth. If you're around five multimillionaires, guess what? Sooner or later, you're going to be the sixth. That's my advice to anyone. Just keep grinding.

I love that. Did you ever have to go ahead and basically force yourself to level up to a different environment because you realized that your environment was going to help you grow?

Thousand %. Yeah? Yeah. I had friends that always wanted to go out drinking. That's all they want to do. Let's Friday night. Let's go party. Let's go with Sean because we know Sean is going to flip that bill. I got tired of it. I got around people who were just like, Dude, this is what you do. You have so much potential. They actually made me feel bad. I'm like, These dudes are doing so well. They saw I had potential, so I had to leave all my other buddies. We had some stories that we can talk about, but that wasn't making us money.

Around what age How old did you start realizing this?

29.

29? Yeah.

It's a good age. 29. I was like, Yeah, dude, I can't do this every night. We were going out four nights a week. Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't do that. But I got around people who were just doing better than me, and I looked up to them and trusted them. That's how things started to shift. I always had that self-discipline. I always had this self-discipline. I always worked out. I mean, that was something I was going to do. I always had that intact. I just didn't find the right people to be around with. I was never around people to do crazy things, but I just weren't around people who had shifted their mindset to the entrepreneur mindset. When I got around the owner of the tax business I'm currently in, things started to shift because I started to see things from a different perspective. I saw people online doing really well. I scrolled, saw you, saw the positive things you were doing. I looked up to that. I wanted to be around people who are just taking things to a next level, being positive, helping others, whether that's through mentoring or whether that's through just leading by example.

That's when things started to shift.

Wow. So your perspective now that you You've been in entrepreneurship for how many years now?

I say full entrepreneur when I completely left corporate America, seven years.

So seven years, full-time entrepreneur. What would you tell someone once they get into full-time entrepreneurship, actually build a business, would that person ever go back to working for someone else?

Once you get to a level of success, I don't think you ever could. Why is that? Having your time back is more valuable. Once you get your time back and you see that you can be compensated substantially and have your time, you can't go back. You couldn't pay me enough.

What do you say to the people that say, Well, I see entrepreneurs working more than they would for someone else. I see them working 50 hours, 60 hours, 100 hours. What do you tell those people?

That's me sometimes. I tell those people that in the beginning, You're going to be that guy working those hours. I mean, there's no way around it. But let me ask you a question. Let me ask this question. Would you rather be working all those hours in making someone else rich or working all those hours in making yourself rich?

That's right. Yeah. Pick your poison. Yeah. It's going to be hard regardless.

It's going to be hard. Choose your heart. Yeah. Right?

No, I love that, man. I love that type of mindset. All right. Now, typically, I go ahead, and at the very end of the interviews, I go ahead and I ask you to go and look at the camera and just imagine that you have hundreds of thousands of people, which, what's going to happen, watching this?

Right.

And they're going to be inspired, and they're going to be like, Man, his story is so real. I'm currently 29. I still don't know what I want to do. I'm trying to figure it out. I have a friend telling me to do X, Y, and Z. Should I do it? Right. What words of encouragement would you tell—this is deep—Old Sean? What would you tell Old Sean when Old Sean was still hanging out with those people that were comfortable? They weren't bad people, but they were comfortable, man. They weren't leveling up. What would you tell Old Sean right now?

That is probably one of the top questions someone's asked me. I would tell Old Sean that keep grinding. You don't have to have it figured out. All you have to do is start. Once you start, that's when your legacy begins. I don't have it figured out yet. The legendary Paul doesn't have it figured out yet. But once you start, that's when your legacy begins. Stay grinding, stay focused, stay around people who is doing something positive. That's what I tell my old self. Just keep grinding and it's all going to pay off. Don't listen to those negative people who are being negative because the negative people, you'll never be criticized by someone doing better than you, I would say. If you're receiving criticism, it's Because those people aren't where you're at, and they're not doing what you're doing. That's what I tell my old self. Keep grinding, keep grinding, and keep pushing. You'll get there.

And that's what we call The Level Up with Sean Green, guys. Guys, leave us five our review on Spotify, Apple podcast, and on YouTube. We have a brand new YouTube channel called The Level Up with Paul Alex. Make sure to go ahead and subscribe to that channel, guys. We're currently top three in business on Apple podcast for the past 10 in months, guys, okay? Because of you, the listeners. Now, guys, if you guys love this episode, make sure to share with a friend that you care about that wants to level up their knowledge, not only in the tax business, but also wants to go ahead and learn more from Sean. And then, Sean, where can my followers and listeners actually go ahead and reach out to you, brother?

Can reach out to me on Instagram. My Instagram is official_shawn, SHAwn63. Again, it's official, underscore, Sean, S-H-A-W-N-6-3. That's my I-J.

There you guys have it. This is the Level Up with Paul Alex, Sean Green. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Peace.