Nine-Figure Mindset

Nine-Figure Mindset Plot Summary

Introduction

The morning light streamed through the blinds as Brandon Dawson stood at his office window, gazing out at the skyline. Just years earlier, he had been a struggling entrepreneur facing the bitter pain of failure after being ousted from the very company he had built from the ground up. In that moment of despair, sitting alone on a golf course with his mentor Hector, he faced a brutal truth: he had been focused on all the wrong things. "What you think is what you say. What you say is what you do. What you do is what you're known for. It's your legacy," Hector had written on a scorecard and handed to him. This simple yet profound wake-up call marked the beginning of Brandon's transformation. This is a story about resilience in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. It chronicles the journey of a founder who learned that true success comes not from proving oneself to others, but from creating value for others. Through Brandon's experiences – from starting multiple companies to his eventual $151 million exit – we witness the power of mindset transformation and strategic leadership. Whether you're just beginning your entrepreneurial journey or seeking to scale your existing business, the lessons within these pages offer a roadmap for achieving extraordinary success while maintaining balance in all areas of life. More than just business strategy, this is about engineering a life where your business works for you, not the other way around.

Chapter 1: The Early Years: From Family Business to Independence

As a young boy sitting on a tractor in his parents' walnut orchard, Brandon Dawson would listen to Casey Kasem's American Top 40 on his little transistor radio, dreaming about the day he would go to New York City to raise money, buy businesses, and become successful. Even then, he showed early signs of entrepreneurial thinking. When his parents decided to take a week's vacation and left him in charge of harvesting the year's walnut crop, Brandon saw an opportunity rather than a chore. Rather than harvesting the walnuts himself, which would have taken weeks, Brandon noticed a flier announcing that the senior class was holding a fundraising drive to raise $1,000 for their senior trip. He approached his friend, the president of the senior class, and asked if he and some of the guys on the football team would help pick up walnuts for pay. What happened next surprised everyone – not just his buddies showed up, but the entire senior class along with their brothers, sisters, and parents. Suddenly, Brandon found himself managing a hundred people, and in just three days, they had completely harvested the orchard – a task that normally took three weeks. After paying the school the $1,000 they needed for the senior trip, Brandon had a $7,700 profit and welcomed his parents home with the cleanest orchard they'd ever seen. "How did you do all this?" was the first question out of his father's mouth. Brandon had learned an invaluable lesson: by collaborating with others and creating mutual benefit, he could accomplish far more than he ever could alone. This pattern continued into his early career. After high school, Brandon began working at Starkey, a hearing aid company founded by his stepfather. His natural sales ability quickly made him stand out – he regularly sold more hearing aids working one day a week than full-timers did in five. This success eventually led to an opportunity in Atlanta, where at nineteen years old, he was given a company car, an expense account, and a sales territory that included eleven states to explore. However, his journey wasn't without challenges. After confronting his boss in Atlanta about inappropriate workplace behavior, Brandon was fired from his family's company. Suddenly without a job, car, or money, he found himself homeless. But this adversity taught him something crucial: resilience and the ability to make it on his own. He started hustling pool and selling coupon books, soon making more money than he had at Starkey. This period of independence shaped his future approach to business – he'd tasted freedom and self-reliance, and it suited him. The early experiences in Brandon's life reveal a fundamental truth about entrepreneurship: sometimes the most valuable lessons come from our greatest challenges. His ability to turn obstacles into opportunities – whether through creative problem-solving with the walnut harvest or finding new income streams when homeless – demonstrated the resilience that would later enable him to build companies worth hundreds of millions. These formative experiences taught him that with ingenuity and determination, he could create success regardless of circumstances.

Chapter 2: Hitting Rock Bottom: Lessons from Business Failure

In December 1995, at twenty-seven years old, Brandon resigned from Starkey to launch his own venture. By February 1996, he had convinced a businessman named Doug Good to sell him half of his hearing care company on a long-term note, despite not having enough money to buy it. The real challenge, however, was finding an investor who would front $1 million to make his dream happen. After twenty-three failed presentations to potential investors, Brandon found himself driving through fog on an icy stretch of Interstate 5 for what would be his twenty-fourth presentation. At midnight, overcome with emotion, Brandon pulled off the highway and sobbed – something he hadn't done since he was eight years old when his parents divorced. "I became a little boy again, and I was scared, full of doubt, insecure, and terrified about the future," he recalls. Yet despite this moment of vulnerability, another part of him remained confident. After all, he had faced sudden changes before in Atlanta and had not only survived but thrived. With this renewed determination, Brandon pulled himself together and continued to Vancouver for the meeting. During the presentation, sensing that Doug had lost the potential investor's attention, Brandon made a bold move. Looking directly at the investor, he stated: "If you just trust me with a million dollars, I will prove to you why and how this will work." When questioned why the investor should trust him, Brandon delivered a passionate response about his commitment: "I only have this one chance to make my dreams come true, and if it doesn't work, I will be viewed as a failure." He emphasized that this was his big chance to establish his credibility for the rest of his life, concluding: "From where I'm sitting, I'm the most secure investment risk you will ever make, because I won't give up until I succeed." That night, Brandon received a check for $1 million. With this initial funding, Brandon built his company, Sonus, which went public and was listed on the American Stock Exchange. By 2002, however, disaster struck. The board of directors, dissatisfied with Brandon's decision to create an international network against their advice, brought in a new CEO and effectively fired him from his own company. "Sell the business? Sell this thing I had practically built from scratch with my own wits and energy? I snickered at them and told them there was not a chance in hell," Brandon remembered thinking. But he had no choice. After losing his company, Brandon fell into a period of bitterness and self-pity. He spent his days on the golf course, complaining to anyone who would listen about how he'd been wronged. This continued until his friend Hector finally confronted him: "If you want to know where you're going in the future, just listen to what you're talking about right now. And what you're talking about now is everything that went wrong in the past." Hector pointed out that Brandon was only going to find more of what he was focused on – things going wrong – and until he accepted responsibility for his own mistakes, he would continue to fail forward. This tough moment of truth was transformative. Brandon realized that his failure stemmed not from external factors, but from his own mindset. He had been running Sonus with arrogance rather than confidence, believing he was smarter than everyone else, including his investors. The experience taught him the crucial difference between confidence (belief in yourself) and arrogance (belief only in yourself). This painful lesson became the foundation for his future success – understanding that sustainable achievement comes from bringing others along on the journey, not from trying to prove yourself the smartest person in the room.

Chapter 3: The Mentor Effect: How Guidance Transformed My Thinking

After Hector's wake-up call on the golf course, Brandon decided to take a sabbatical to figure out how to write the next chapter of his life. Hector gave him three books to read: John Maxwell's "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership," Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter's "Cashflow Quadrant," and Robert Anthony's "Beyond Positive Thinking." These readings would become the foundation for Brandon's transformation. As he studied Maxwell's book, Brandon was struck by "The Law of Addition," which states that "the bottom line in leadership isn't how far we advance ourselves but how far we advance others." This challenged everything he thought he knew about business success. He had always seen business as a zero-sum game of winners and losers, with the goal being to accumulate as much personal success as possible. Maxwell's perspective suggested that true leadership was about creating value for others, not just himself. Brandon realized he had been what he called an "entrepreholic" – someone who forms an addiction to starting businesses that become less and less satisfying and generate smaller rewards. This condition arises when entrepreneurs fail to understand their motivation for creating a business in the first place. "The entrepreholic rarely learns from mistakes and is doomed to repeat them over and over again," Brandon reflected. His pattern had been to play either the hero or the victim, always dominated by fear – fear of failure, fear of loss of esteem, fear of lack of control. His mentorship with Hector deepened when Brandon asked if he could prepare questions and videotape Hector's answers. During these sessions, Hector introduced Brandon to his 3M concept: "model, mimic, and mastery." Hector explained, "Dude, there's no point doing anything after you master it. After you master something, your next step is teaching other people how to do it, and then teaching them how to teach others, because there's no leverage in doing anything on a one-to-one ratio." This insight revolutionized Brandon's understanding of leadership. He had been trying to do everything himself, finding deals, negotiating, raising capital, and overseeing operations. "You never built a team around you that could multiply the knowledge and actions needed to expand," Hector pointed out. "You shouldn't be adding people if you're not intending on multiplying through people." To experience Hector's principles firsthand, Brandon even joined Primerica, Hector's company, as an associate. Despite having been a CEO of a public company, he humbled himself to learn Hector's system from the ground up. He recruited people, built a team, and experienced the power of the model-mimic-master-multiply approach. This practical immersion allowed him to understand not just the theory but the real-world application of creating a multiplier effect through leadership. The mentorship with Hector exemplifies how transformative guidance can be when we're open to it. Brandon's willingness to be vulnerable enough to accept criticism and humble enough to start over as a student allowed him to break free from destructive patterns and create a new foundation for success. His experience highlights that sometimes the most valuable investment we can make isn't in financial capital but in learning from those who have already walked the path we aim to travel.

Chapter 4: Building Audigy: Creating a $151 Million Success Story

With the lessons from his mentors firmly internalized, Brandon began engineering a new kind of business that would revolutionize his approach to entrepreneurship. During his sabbatical, he studied merger and acquisition companies that had failed between 1997 and 2003, and had an epiphany: even when a company looked good on paper, its success still depended on the emotional connection and alignment of the people involved. Brandon identified what he called "cram-down models" in traditional business acquisitions – approaches where buyers dictate how acquired businesses should operate. This often created resentment among sellers who felt they weren't getting fair value or respect. "What if I could create a business system that pulled people up rather than shoved them into a box?" Brandon wondered. This led to his concept of a shared ownership model with personal, professional, and financial (PPF) goal-planning at its core. When his non-compete with Sonus expired, Brandon launched Audigy Group in 2004. Unlike traditional consolidation models, Audigy operated as a management company that provided comprehensive consulting and operational services to small businesses in the hearing services industry. The revolutionary aspect was its structure: Brandon would give business owners equity in his management company, effectively becoming their employee. "I would work for you," he explained. "If I was successful, your business would grow; and the business we would be partnered with, Audigy, would grow as well." The client recruitment process reflected this philosophy. Brandon would hold "guest summits" where he asked potential clients: "If you had the choice of building your business bigger, better, faster, more profitable, and in such a way that you could differentiate yourself from the rest of the marketplace, would you want to do it?" Rather than telling business owners he would buy them and deploy new concepts, he emphasized respecting their achievements while offering to help them grow further. One of Brandon's first employees was Mason Walker, whom he met at a Ferrari dealership. Impressed by Mason's personality, Brandon challenged him to think bigger than his goal of someday managing the dealership: "What if someone could teach you how to eventually own your own Ferrari dealership?" Despite offering Mason less than half of what he earned at the dealership, Brandon convinced him to join Audigy by appealing to his long-term goals and potential for equity growth. This approach to employee development became central to Audigy's success. Brandon implemented an Employee Maturity Model that provided a framework for team members to develop themselves and advance in the organization based on actual maturation and leadership demonstrated through learning and contribution. This wasn't about spending time in a position and automatically advancing; it was about taking on new challenges and improving something at Audigy before being recognized with a new title and salary. From 2008 to 2012, while the world was in recession, Audigy grew exponentially. The company received awards for six straight years from the Oregon Business Journal as the fastest-growing private company on the West Coast, won five Inc. Magazine 500 awards, three top workplace awards, and numerous other accolades. By 2016, when Brandon sold Audigy for $151 million (seventy-seven times EBITDA – one of the highest values ever paid for a private company), they had 198 employees working with 280 business owners, each of whom was three-and-a-half to fifteen times larger than their industry peers. The success of Audigy demonstrates the power of aligning incentives and focusing on mutual value creation. By structuring a business where everyone's success was interdependent, Brandon created exponential growth while avoiding the pitfalls of his previous venture. The key insight from Audigy's story is that sustainable business success comes not from extracting value from others, but from creating systems where everyone genuinely wins together.

Chapter 5: Relationships Matter: Balancing Work and Life

The journey of building successful businesses often exacts a heavy toll on personal relationships. Brandon's story provides a candid look at this challenge. "According to the US Census Bureau, there were around 7.9 million business establishments operated by couples in 2022," he notes. "While this may conjure up a quaint image of couples working contentedly side-by-side, such businesses are anything but quaint. A better description might be 'fraught,' or 'challenging.'" Brandon experienced the strain of balancing entrepreneurship and marriage firsthand through two divorces before meeting his current wife, Natalie. His first marriage to Tracy ended amicably when they realized they wanted fundamentally different lives – she desired a rural lifestyle far from corporate America, while he was driven to build businesses. His second marriage to Tammy lasted thirteen years but ultimately ended when their expectations about his career trajectory diverged. "It's me or the business. You're supposed to be winding down now, not ramping up," Tammy had told him when he turned forty-five, making good on an ultimatum from three years earlier. This painful experience taught Brandon that alignment has to be "baked into a marriage from the start." As he reflects, "Much as my experience in Atlanta had taught me to value professional independence as a nonnegotiable condition for my work, the failure of my second marriage taught me never to assume that my personal life would simply 'work itself out' with respect to my professional life." Natalie Workman entered Brandon's life while working at his company. After she left to study at the London School of Economics and returned in 2015, they began working together on new business ventures. Their relationship evolved from friendship to romance, but faced challenges due to their age difference and professional relationship. To address misconceptions, they even created a YouTube channel and podcast called "Age Gap Realness" to educate people about their relationship. What made their partnership successful was their shared vision and values. "Based on those failures, this time around I was not going to commit to someone who didn't want to go all in and have the same personal and professional and financial goals that I had," Brandon explains. "Natalie and I made sure we shared the same vision for what our life would be and the same values for how we'd live our life together." Brandon developed a technique for helping business partners and couples align their goals. He would have them draw three columns: the husband's interests on the right, the wife's on the left, and shared interests in the middle. This exercise helps identify common ground and prioritize mutual goals. "This starts to frame the conversation around things that can be created together," he explains. By focusing on technical processes rather than emotional blame, this approach helps couples move forward productively. The lesson Brandon learned about relationships applies universally: "Being out of alignment with your spouse is a recipe for catastrophic results." He now coaches clients on managing this "breaking point" that can occur when professional demands fall out of alignment with personal relationships. His experiences highlight that success isn't just about building a profitable business – it's about creating a life where work and relationships reinforce rather than undermine each other. This chapter of Brandon's life reveals the often-overlooked truth that entrepreneurial success without relationship success is ultimately hollow. The real achievement is building a business that enhances rather than diminishes your most important connections, creating a foundation for both professional accomplishment and personal fulfillment.

Chapter 6: The Mindset Shift: From Self-Focused to Value Creation

After selling Audigy for $151 million, Brandon found himself financially independent but spiritually restless. Golf, dining out, and traveling no longer satisfied his need for purpose and impact. Together with Natalie, he entered a second sabbatical, different from his first with Hector. This time, rather than healing from failure, they were seeking direction for their next chapter. The couple engaged in personal, professional, and financial goal-setting to help determine their next project. They established five criteria for their future venture: finding mentors who had achieved the level of success they aspired to, working with someone whose expertise complemented Brandon's, finding people they could have fun with, joining forces with another couple who made work and marriage a source of joy, and partnering with those who loved building businesses rather than just aiming for a quick exit. Through Natalie's research, they discovered Grant and Elena Cardone. Though initially skeptical of Grant's public persona ("This guy is like a bad cartoon character," Brandon had thought), Brandon's perspective changed dramatically after listening to Grant's audiobooks during a car trip. "About thirty minutes into the audio, I started shaking my head and laughing because this guy knew exactly what he was talking about," Brandon recalls. "My only regret was that I hadn't met him ten years earlier." Grant's mantra that "success is your duty, obligation, and responsibility" and his concept of "10X thinking" – the idea that whatever you're thinking, you should multiply by ten – resonated deeply with Brandon. These principles aligned perfectly with the transformation he had undergone since his days at Sonus, moving from self-centered achievement to creating value for others. When Brandon and Natalie attended Grant's 10X Growth Conference in 2019, they carefully orchestrated their introduction. Brandon wore sparkly Louis Vuitton shoes that would catch attention when the lights swept over the audience, positioning themselves where Grant would notice them. Their mutual friend John Maxwell made the introduction, and a partnership began to form. The collaboration between Brandon and Grant proved ideal because of their complementary skills. While both were strategic thinkers who loved systems and processes, Grant excelled at sales and marketing, while Brandon specialized in operationalizing companies quickly and effectively without outside investment. "In joining forces," Brandon explained, "I would blend everything smoothly together to be consistent. I never pitted my way of doing things versus his." This approach reflected Brandon's complete transformation from his earlier entrepreneurial days. Rather than needing to be the star or prove himself the smartest person in the room, he was content to be "Charlie Munger to Grant's Warren Buffett" – less known than his famous partner, but capable and successful. "I've never put my name on any of my companies because I never felt they'd be big enough, but I will always be okay being the Charlie Munger," Brandon explains. When Grant asked how much money Brandon would need to launch their 360 Management company, Brandon's answer revealed how far he had come from his days of raising millions for Sonus: "I needed nothing. I could build our model without raising or investing any money, using the same principles I was going to teach all our clients." All he asked of Grant was introductions to business owners, incorporation of Grant's marketing and sales expertise, and help thinking bigger. The mindset shift from self-focused achievement to value creation represents the most profound transformation in Brandon's journey. By letting go of ego and focusing on how he could serve others, he paradoxically achieved greater success than ever before. Their partnership company, Cardone Ventures, grew exponentially in just thirty-six months, with both partners openly discussing building a business worth billions. This chapter of Brandon's story demonstrates that the greatest success comes not from proving your worth to others, but from creating genuine value in service to others' dreams.

Chapter 7: Crisis Management: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

When COVID-19 struck in early 2020, Brandon and his team at Cardone Ventures were thrust into crisis management mode, not only for their own company but for thousands of client businesses as well. This global disruption tested the principles Brandon had developed throughout his entrepreneurial journey, particularly his belief that crises often conceal extraordinary opportunities. "Most people go about their daily business trying to do a good job today and, if they have a strategic plan, are working to stick to the plan month after month and year after year," Brandon observes. "Most people don't enjoy thinking about the likelihood that some kind of crisis will disrupt their plans." Yet his experience had taught him that preparation for disruption is essential for long-term success. When facing an emergency or crisis, Brandon follows a specific mental checklist: First, assess his own situation; second, check on family; third, check on friends; fourth, determine if those he's responsible for are safe; fifth, evaluate how much time he has to act; and finally, seek trusted resources who have navigated similar situations successfully. This structured approach prevents the panic that often leads to poor decision-making during turbulent times. One of the most important concepts Brandon emphasizes is "context and contrast." Making decisions in a state of fear or shock – or making no decisions at all – can create negative momentum. Instead, he advises pausing to gather data and create contrasting scenarios to fully think through potential steps. "Until you find data points that you can rely on to confirm or contest your present thinking, pause on making any big decisions," he counsels. This approach was exemplified in his work with Stacy and Gary Conner, owners of Equipment Experts. When the pandemic hit, Stacy "completely freaked out," with only $100,000 in the bank – not enough to sustain their company of twenty-five employees through a prolonged shutdown. Brandon's first advice was pragmatic: increase their line of credit and, knowing banks might close those lines during a crisis, immediately pull the cash. They also implemented what Brandon calls a "lifeboat drill," evaluating their team based on operational effectiveness, belief, and leadership to determine who was essential to keep. Brandon's crisis management philosophy extends beyond tactical responses to mindset. "With the right mindset, a crisis can be a minor setback or a growth opportunity, one that might even serve as the potential catalyst that propels you to the next level of success," he explains. He encourages business owners to view disruption as an opportunity to recruit top talent, secure favorable market positions, and dominate current opportunities while competitors retreat. Perhaps most importantly, Brandon emphasizes that crises often expose underlying problems that might otherwise remain hidden. "Fixing the problem could become the biggest opportunity you'll ever see for growth," he notes. During the 2008-2012 recession, while many businesses folded, Brandon's company thrived, appearing on Inc. Magazine's lists of fastest-growing companies and winning numerous awards. His mindset made the difference: "While others were shutting down, I was aggressively building up." This approach to crisis reveals the culmination of Brandon's journey from self-focused entrepreneur to value-creating leader. By maintaining clarity about long-term goals while responding pragmatically to immediate challenges, he demonstrates that success comes not from avoiding disruption but from developing the resilience to transform crisis into opportunity. His experience teaches us that our response to unexpected challenges ultimately defines our legacy more than our achievements during times of prosperity.

Summary

Through Brandon Dawson's remarkable journey from a young dreamer on a tractor to a business leader with multiple nine-figure exits, we witness the transformative power of mindset. His story reminds us that our greatest failures often contain the seeds of our most profound growth, if only we have the courage to extract the lessons they offer. Brandon's evolution from an "entrepreholic" focused on proving his worth to others, to a value-creator dedicated to advancing others, embodies the core truth that sustainable success comes through collaboration rather than competition. The narrative threads woven throughout Brandon's experiences highlight several universal principles. First, true leadership isn't about how far we advance ourselves, but how far we advance others. Second, aligning everyone's interests – team members, clients, and partners – creates exponential rather than incremental growth. Finally, and perhaps most powerfully, we see that resilience isn't about avoiding crises but about responding to them with clarity, purpose, and an unwavering belief in possibility. As Brandon discovered during his darkest moments after losing Sonus, what we focus on expands – when we focus on past grievances, we create more pain; when we focus on future opportunities, we create abundance. The wisdom gleaned from Brandon's journey isn't merely about building successful businesses; it's about crafting a life of meaning, impact, and fulfillment by helping others achieve their dreams alongside our own.

About Author

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Brandon Dawson

Brandon Dawson is a scaling and turnaround expert, business leadership mentor, and serial entrepreneur whose mission is to help business owners, their families, and their teams achieve their personal, professional, and financial goals through the growth of their business.Brandon learned the power of scale when he was just 16 years old, working on his parent’s walnut farm. He learned that people are the foundation of business, and dedicated his life to perfecting the art of scaling through leadership and proven strategies in the areas of operations, finance, marketing, belief, strategy, execution, and team alignment.‍Brandon founded his first business at the age of 26 and was one of the youngest people to ring the bell on the American Stock Exchange. With zero debt and no outside capital, he founded and self-funded Audigy Group, ultimately growing annual revenue to over $35 million through organic growth. He exited the company at 77X EBITDA for $151 million. He’s achieved numerous awards in business, and his companies have been recognized on the Inc. 500 and Inc. 5,000 Fastest-Growing Companies list five times.‍Today, Brandon coaches Cardone Ventures’ clients on how to use his proven leadership and business strategies as the foundation for strategic growth so that they can follow in his footsteps and create their own legacies.

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