This Tony Robbins Disciple Says Success Is All About Helping Others
Markus Kaulius joined the Satell Institute because the organization’s members — CEOs and entrepreneurs who give back— are “my people.”
Kaulius: “Well-known entrepreneurs fail a ton,” he says.
Markus Kaulius is a classic entrepreneur. Creative. Opportunistic. Addicted to action.
All those qualities have served Kaulius well. During his career, the Vancouver-based entrepreneur — a new SI Member — has had three successful exits, including, most recently, the sale of Magnum Nutraceuticals, a supplement company he launched and grew to more than $170 million in revenue.
During his journey, Kaulius has learned valuable lessons about entrepreneurship, as well as what success really looks like.
His thoughts on that latter topic echo what many of SI’s CEO members say: Yes, they give back because it’s good for the community and good for their companies. But it also adds meaning to their own lives.
In this conversation, Kaulius talks about entrepreneurship, including the challenge of life after selling a business. He also expounds on his close relationship with business guru Tony Robbins, and why he couldn’t be more excited to be a member of the Satell Institute.
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I’m a…
…multi-exit entrepreneur. I’ve been at it for over 30 years. I love the entrepreneurial language. I love talking about it. I love working with young entrepreneurs. And I love investing in the right people — people who I believe are going to be our next big leaders. I recently launched my own fund, called Five Talent Capital, to do that.
I was 16 years old…
…when my brother invited me to do a business with him. He was 10 years older than me, and it was a smoothie business. I was the face of the company who would drive around and sell smoothies to coffee shops. We packed my SUV as full as we could, and I wasn’t allowed to come home until it was empty. But you just figure out a way, right? After that, I really felt a calling.
I love…
… sports nutrition. I love health. When I was 18, working out radically changed my life, and I was just obsessed with it. Other guys were like, hey, can you teach me about it? Can you give me advice on supplements? I was like, of course: why don’t I sell supplements?
I had a bedroom with $15,000 worth of supplements in it. And if you were interested, you’d come by my house and you would literally sit on my bed, and I would say, here’s what you’re going to take. We’re in this together.
Eventually I opened my first store, which turned into three stores. And then I felt God give me this plan to have my own brand, Magnum Nutraceuticals. That was January 17, 2005.
I started the brand within 10 minutes, and I ran it for 18-and-a-half years. I took it from zero dollars to $170 million in global sales before I sold it.
Tony Robbins has been my mentor…
… for 32 years now. Something he challenged me with was profound, and it changed the course of my entrepreneurial journey so much.
One day he asked me, are you a business owner or a business operator? And there was just no question: I wanted to be a business owner, but I wasn’t. I was an operator. And, in fact, I had built myself a prison.
Now most entrepreneurs, we build ourselves prisons, and they’re beautiful prisons. But make no mistake: you have to show up to prison every day. If you try to take seven or eight days off to go on vacation, see what happens inside the prison.
That really changed the way I thought about things. It was really about empowerment — as in, I’m going to empower others so that I can leave my prison.
New entrepreneurs expect things to happen…
…10 times faster than they actually happen. Social media has made this so much worse because you see people who claim to be multimillionaires overnight. Well, I became a multimillionaire overnight — but it took me 19 years! And that’s the usual story for entrepreneurship.
It really messes people up…
… when they sell their business. You’re selling your identity, right? You become so disconnected. You worked 60, 70, 80 hours a week, and now you work zero hours a week. Yes, you have money in the bank, but who the heck cares? There’s such a disconnect. And we all go through the exact same things.
I now feel a conscious desire…
...to help other entrepreneurs and start preparing them. If you want to sell your business one day, I’m going to start preparing you now for what it’s going to look like. And I’ve mentored a bunch of people.
My definition of success now is…
… how can I help others achieve their dreams? Because truly my success comes from lifting someone else’s hand.
One way I do that…
… is through a school I’ve had in Haiti for six years now. We’ve got 51 or 52 kids, and we give them education, medical, dental, and food while they’re with us at the school.
In the last two years…
…God also put it on my heart to pull kids out of the sex trade. I met people who are well-connected to the Tim Tebow Foundation, so I’ve partnered with them.
And I’m going to use my new fund. This is another lesson Tony Robbins taught me on how to make your money go further. One of the visions I have for my fund is to say to my investors, “No pressure, but I’m going to match any funds that anybody wants to put towards pulling kids out of the sex trade.” My goal is to get one million children out of the sex trade.
I first learned about the Satell Institute…
…through a close friend who said to me, “Markus, this really sounds like your thing.” Then [SI regional leader] Paul Howard and I had the most amazing conversation. He told me that Satell was this group of CEOs and entrepreneurs who are focused on giving back. I said, “That sounds like my people.” I’m psyched to be part of it, however I can support this beautiful plan.
The number one difference between an entrepreneur and a non-entrepreneur is…
…we just take action. Great, well-known entrepreneurs fail a ton. That’s the thing that people who don’t take action just forget.
I think a baseball analogy is so good: If you get a hit three out of 10 times, you make the Hall of Fame. Amazing. Whereas the average person who doesn’t take action, they’re like, oh, I’d be so scared of missing one — so I’m not going to swing. Well, I’ll just swing 10 times. And that makes all the difference.
